(Saint Sebastian toothpick holder)

Homosexuals have fantasies about this handsome young saint, but according to the story, he flirted constantly with death until they were wedded in an indissoluble marriage. The privilege of a naked Christ on the cross, bleeding from his side, crowned with thorns, has competed in sculptures and paintings since the year 500 AD with this Roman soldier pierced by a thousand arrows, in a contorted posture showing a muscular torso. He was often invoked for protection against the Black Death, perhaps because his wounds resemble the swellings that this plague caused, but some say us that this icon was a much older votive offering against the invisible arrows of the beings that inhabit the forest. One way of protecting yourself against being bitten by flies and mosquitoes was by offering a figurine as a form of distraction, as if saying “Sting him instead”. It is a coincidence that the world capital of appetizers on toothpicks is San Sebastian, a pintxo paradise, and this has inspired us to produce this series of toothpick holders. Maybe this way we can find a distraction for at least an instant from the constant dialectical arrows that television chefs throw at us in the form of TV programmes, newspaper articles, contests or advertisements. This is a contemporary votive offering to recover one’s sanity and of course, to keep a toothpick handy.