Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

"This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart.

After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially-statistically speaking-there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius remov "This is a book about making art. Ordinary art.

Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially-statistically speaking-there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place.

For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius." --from the Introduction