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genius? what is that? i think it's a romantic myth, something that speaks to an how folk like to imagine what art is or who artists are that has nothing to do with how pieces are actually made or what making things actually entails. maybe there are some folk whose ways of working correspond to that myth--i dunno. mostly i see and know about people who work over an extended period with a medium in a craftsman like way generating lots more work than anyone sees, throwing stuff out, selecting, arranging...some work that folk do is really amazing. but it doesn't drop from the sky, there is no divine inspiration. so there is no madness of making stuff, some space of immediacy in which all bets are off. and artists aren't Special People--they work in areas that the love, in ways they find engaging, and manage through various means to get their work out into the world. or someone does.
this correlation between "genius" and social deviance sits atop this romantic myth of the artist. it's a correlate, a restatement of the myth.
and people who make things need not be particularly intelligent in general. some are, some aren't, you know?
i think that if you make stuff you spend at least some of your time bending around social conventions. maybe there's a correlation between that and a tendency to imagine that social rules in general don't really apply to you. it's hard to say, but at least the idea makes sense to me.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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