My name is Deborah , but everyone who knows me (outside of work) calls me Debbie. I’m 24 years old and currently live in New York, the city I’ve had the pleasure of calling home for the past six years. I was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, which is why you’ll find occasional words in Spanish throughout my page and frequent grammatical errors in most of my thoughts. My Latin Americanness is one of the aspects of my identity dearest to me, and you’ll likely see it reflected in the things I’m drawn to. I’m a feminist and an optimist and a little witchy depending on who you ask. 

Art has been the biggest of my passions since my teenage years and will remain the greatest of my loves until the day I die. I can’t make art—at least, that’s what I tell myself—but looking at art, thinking about art, and writing about art are my favorite ways to spend my time, whether alone or accompanied. It all began when I was 15, obsessed with poetry and literature, yet puzzled by paintings I couldn’t understand in the same way as my verses and prose. I started attending art history lectures at my hometown museum, fell in love with the discipline, and the rest is history.

To my father’s disgrace, I majored in Art History in college (and, to save his grace, also in Economics). In my day job, we try to save the world—or at least change it—a noble pursuit that makes me excited to get out of bed every morning. But it has absolutely nothing to do with my love for art. This page/blog/project is my way of keeping that well and alive. So far, it’s been working.

The best way to describe me as a person? Art-obsessed and overtly emotional, for better or for worse. A stubborn idealist and a Romantic with a capital R would be a close second.

My philosophy for engaging with art is the following: I believe that all art is political (or that it should be). I seek art that moves me, touches me, makes me feel. Otherwise, I’m afraid there’s no point (at least for me). I’m known for crying in museums and crowded theater rows, and I have no problem with that. I’m a fan of the provocative and have a distaste for the pretentious. I like art that makes me think, and I often enjoy art that confuses me. I don’t feel I need to understand everything about art to appreciate it. I don’t think anyone really does. Openness is more important than being a know-it-all, especially in front of something as human as a work of art. I love to look at beautiful objects, but I believe extraordinary beauty goes beyond form. I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. I think a lot of things when experiencing art are not mutually exclusive. I often contradict myself and I would be a terrible art critic or academic and I have come to terms with all of that. 

But what I will swear on is that in daring to look, to really look, we find so much more than just what we are looking at. I dare everyone reading this to try it for themselves.