Coromo In New York, parts 1655 - 1658

1655. At this point Proctor Cronk showed Coromo an image of an Adolph Wolfli work on the screen of his iPad, to illustrate what he was saying. Coromo, since it was late and no one else was in the restaurant, was seated across from Proctor at the table. He had broken out into a sweat, so upset was he by the lecture of Proctor Cronk about Adolph Wolfli.

1656. Proctor could see be the silence and rigid face of Coromo that he had his listener’s attention so he continued saying, “I realize that perhaps you have never heard of Adolph Wolfli, the name is unknown to most people but that does not mean anything, for people who are interested in the subject Adolph is the Michelangelo of the outsider movement. If you go to a computer and type in has name you will find very surprising information.

1657. The most impressive thing however is the auction prices for those drawings on newsprint; any one of them will sell for well over 25,000 dollars. Now, imagine to yourself a huge stack of such drawings on newsprint, an entire lifetime’s work where the artist has spent every waking hour of his long life working on his art. Now imagine those thousands of drawings multiplied by 25,000 dollars and you have some inkling of the importance of Adolph, at least from the economic standpoint.

1658. And keep in mind that newsprint is the cheapest of the papers used by artists. Newsprint is not intended to last. Newsprint is used for newspapers; you read the news on Tuesday, and use the same paper to wrap the garbage in on Wednesday. A sheet of newsprint costs less than a penny, but a good sheet of watercolor paper that will last forever costs almost twenty dollars.