ARTISTS DIARY

Editor's NoteThis is the recently found diary of the noted artist and fraud, Erich Von Krappe. Erich, known as "Enrico" to his one fan, claims to have been born in 1904 in either Spain, France or Bulgaria depending upon what time of day he is asked by one of his many frustrated biographers.
His life has been one of general upper middle class luck co-mingling with a definite inspiration derived from delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately his own laziness and general lack of talent has insured that few if any of his paintings are actually seen in today's art world. Nonetheless this diary, recently discovered anonymously left in Sotheby's mailbox, is of interest to art historians as well as just the curious and horrified, because for all his shortcomings in talent, he himself, was truly "a piece of work."

We open these joumals in late 1994, where Krappe(pronounced "Chre-ppejh", ,is still laboring at the creating of "Acrylic on canvasses" a chore he will soon give up in favor of rampant egotism, loutishness and tiresome self-promotion.

3/10/95
I was tremendously inspired by the view from my window this morning. I currently overlook a rather dank alley and the lack of sunshine made me so uneasy and apprehensive that suddenly it seemed necessary to do something besides watching TV. I paced around like a caged panther, fighting off the oncoming shortness of breath, cold sweats, and claustrophobic horror I knew so well. I tried doing the dishes, but the soap dries my hands so! Then I remembered that I was an artist, no, a great artist, who had been languishing away. It was the artist within that I had been stifling who was signaling this panic attack! Lo, he had woken up within me, inspired by the depressing sight of the dingy alley! I lunged for my box of brushes and tubes of paint. I filled a cup full of water and looked for a light bulb to see by. I cleaned off a plate to use as a palette and then cut up the box my paints were in and gessoed it for a canvas. I was anxious, trembling with anticipation all this while, wondering what beautiful mad vision my panic attack would create. As I waited for the gesso to dry I looked over the alley, for it was the cause, it was the very inspiration of my Muse! After 10 hours, the gesso was dry and I began to select the paints for my pallette. The first one I selected, yellow ochre, the sexiest of colors, wouldn't open, neither would the white! Soon I was trying to open even the unsexiest of all paints: Burnt Umber. Even this would not open for me! They were all glued shut! I tried and I tried. I held them in a tub of hot water. I pleaded with them. I played the drums for them, but they stubbornly, silently, like passively resisting hindu monks, stayed glued shut. I think this is some sort of lesson. Eventually I put them all in a bag and threw them in the East River. Tomorrow I am going to a paint store.

3/21/23
They had a sale on blue paint today, alas, that Picasso gets up earlier than I do, and by the time I got to the store, he had made off with the lot! At least I managed to talk that dim-witted shop-keeper down on Burnt Umber! I know I said it is unsexy, but what do I care about sexy anymore? I can make anything sexy just focusing my perspective! I like it because it is good shit color; it is my life. Perhaps the school-children were right to call me "Crap" instead of "Chre-ppejh". For it pleases me to smear burnt umber on the pretty virgin white canvasses. I revel in the fact that I am a filthy creature, the shame is synergized into power!

4/12/33
My ignorant critics go to great effort to tell me how unpleasant my burnt umber phase is to them. The fools know nothing of value. That paint was only $2.95 a tube! I still have several tubes to go. This is no phase by any means. This is a period!

5/22/76

Somebody said it best, "Every empty canvas is a masterpiece." All I managed to do with my talent and filthy brushes is to sully the nice white world. Let them that demand my paintings, them that pay high prices, let them call me "maestro" a bringer in of color to the emptiness, a giver of form, yeah. That'll teach'em. But I know, and you dear diary know, that the void is the only form. I'll sleep a white canvas, said the timid forest. But by dawn it had sprouted greens.
3. There is no form for Enrico. There is only shapes. MovementsÉ of shapes. But the form is always lost in the wind. That is why my detractors say my work has no meaning, why I need to take an evening course at the craft college. They accuse me of developing my paintings poorly. Hah! I tell them. Nuts to You! Not one of my paintings has ever been developed at all! What I have done to the poor white canvas is simultaneously give and take away any chance at being something. One brush stroke later a masterpiece is irrevocably ruined, on brush stroke ealier, it is still unfinished. During the critical moment in between, the phone rings. It is the grocer. He wants money. "Your money is lost now, you idiot." I shout into the receiver, "this painting I was doing would have made millions, but thanks to your ill-timed phone call my concentration is gone, finis!" By the end of this harangue he is so amused he brings up a gallon of wine and some bread. Soon he is trying to steal my wife. I whisper to her in the hall "as long as we get butter." And I sneak up to the loft to wreck yet another innocent piece of canvas. Oh why don't the canvas makers just see what I am doing and stop?

3/2/67
I am besieged by visitors even in the loft. A spider watches my work coldly from the corner and when I beg him for commentary he says nothing, merely scribbles notes in his little journal. Publish what you will you contemptible misinformed critic! Perhaps he is just waiting for the inspiration to build his web. If he starts to spin a web I am bound to feel artistically intimidated, and I will have to crush him!