Art
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You have Started to Smell like Ketchup
Your ketchup is leaving a bad smell in your pantry. When was the last time you poured ketchup on your food? Was it with Thai takeout or French fries? I bet it was the second. You pulled out a bag of McCain’s frozen fries, tossed them in the microwave, squeezed ketchup on top, and started…
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Should You Keep Trying of Giving Up?
The struggles of submitting for Art Calls. Here I put my reflections about being artist and showing up
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The task left to those unseen
Editor’s Note: I continue to share the letters Jorge entrusted to me. He insisted on calling them his correspondence with the Virgin Mary, though there is no way to confirm whether these texts are a form of channelling or simply Jorge’s imagination—his own way of wrestling with demons or gods. The writings arrive like fragments…
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The Missing Record
It’s curious how our minds work — how some desires are repressed, curtailed by social convention, or what we might call social suppression. But before we dig deeper into that, let me tell you a story. Our story begins in the early 1980s with Heidi Berg, a young singer navigating New York’s folk scene. She…
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Why Velázquez Painted Only One Nude — and Why Instagram Still Erases Them
On the persistence of cultural censorship across centuries Charles Darwin was never meant to become Charles Darwin. His father, a wealthy physician, expected him to follow medicine or the church — safe, respectable, predictable. The young Darwin’s passion for collecting beetles, rocks, and fossils seemed frivolous, even embarrassing. When he boarded the Beagle in 1831,…
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My Dad was a Monster and I loved him deeply.
On Christmas Day 2024, my father passed away at the age of 85. He was, in the truest sense of the word, a monster—but not the kind that lurks in shadows with fangs and claws. He was the kind only a father can be: imposing, untouchable, a presence that overshadowed everything around him. And I…
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Why People Don’t Buy Art: The Stories We Tell and the Rituals We Keep
For most people, the morning is a ritual of familiarity. My grandfather used to read the newspaper while the radio droned the morning news, offering him a constant stream of updates to critique over breakfast. My mother, more focused, restricts herself to the local news—traffic, weather, maybe a fire or two. My wife, in contrast,…
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Michelangelo’s Hidden Battle
In the early 16th century, the city of Florence found itself at the crossroads of artistic genius. The Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio, an imposing chamber that already echoed with civic pride, became the stage for a remarkable artistic duel. The city commissioned two of its most celebrated artists to adorn opposing walls…
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Love Conquers All, another story about censorship
In 1602, Caravaggio completed Amor Vincit Omnia, or Love Conquers All. It was the kind of work only Caravaggio could create: Cupid, standing with arrows in one hand, seems to tread casually over symbols of human accomplishment—armor, a lute, a lined notebook—suggesting that love supersedes all human endeavors. The painting was an instant sensation among Rome’s…
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Congratulations, You’re Now Officially an Artist!
“Dear Carlos Fentanes, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you again for entering this year’s International Artist Awards. We are pleased to inform you that your artwork has been shortlisted at this stage. Congratulations!” Every now and then, I get a message like this. It’s official—I’m an artist! A little thrill. A…
Carlos Fentanes 