To make art you need to hear voices

(and they need not be authorized)

I have been very interested in the idea of where creativity comes from these days. It is the bain of the artist's existence that they must come up with something that not only fills their desperate need to create, but also speaks to others as well. This task is super challenging, and causes no end to the stress of the artist. 

In an academic setting I have learned that as an artist, you do not sit around and "wait for inspiration" as I used to believe. The creation process happens through daily hard work. But so much of the time, when I come up with something really good, I actually have no idea where it comes from. It's almost like magic, and in times when I'm a little blocked, I ask myself where my creativity has gone. 

Joshua Michie

The idea that the individual of the artist is not actually responsible for the "genius" of creativity, was first presented to me in the wonderful TED talk by Elisabeth Gilbert. She brings up all the historical ways that people felt about genius and all of them are very reassuring to me. This is a talk that I would love to be able to apply to my practice, although my current cultural views don't quite allow for it yet.

I just finished reading the last chapter of Divine Horsemen: Living Gods Haiti by Maya Deren, where she discusses the Voudoun religion and their perspectives on life. This excerpt on the "loa" (what they call the possession from their gods) is particularly interesting to me.

"Explain that it is the "imagination" which makes him capable of conceiving beyond the reality which he knows, and that this is compounded of memories. Speak of "idealism" as source of his willingness to undergo ordeal on behalf of creative, non-material achievement. Insist that in forgoing immediate reward he seeks historical position. Add, even, that such values are engendered by the influence of father, the love of mother, the praise of men. List all those intellectual and moral qualities- vision, inspiration, imagination- which most distinguish the poet, the philosopher, the scientist; catalogue them, nme them, count and differentiate and "explain" their origins, their operation, mechanisms and motivations. The Haitian will not dispute you. When you have finished he might shrug his shoulders, saying simply, in Creole: "All that, we call 'to have loa'"
(Page 249, McPherson)

It goes on to say that all of these attributes come from their gods, and that "the major value of the loa is their very transcendence, so they cannot be, simultaneously, identified with man." (Pg 249)

And what I listen to today as I TRY an knock my own genius back into my skull: