Q: 3am magazine interviewed John M. Bennett (October 7, 2009). Bennett says,

It is important to collect these writers because, as has been the case over and over in the history of literature, the best and most innovative writing, the writing that advances the art and that in the future becomes the classic and defining work of a period, is almost always the work of outsiders.

A: When I was in Atlanta, there was a big trade show at the North Atlanta Trade Center every year called Folk Fest.

I went to that every year.

There was a show in connection with the Cultural Olympics called Souls Grown Deep: African-American Vernacular Art of the South. I went to that.

I went to Howard Finster's Paradise Garden, in Summerville, up by Rome, several times.

Apropos of Halloween.

I had been interested in outsider art since seeing the show Passionate Visions of the American South: Self-Taught Artists from 1940 to the Present, in 1994. Larry and Hazel invited me to New Orleans to see that.

Q: Howard Finster said,

As far as I'm concerned, ther ain't no outsiders of anything. If you're an artist, you're an artist. If you're a mechanic, you're a mechanic. If you're a farmer, you're a farmer. Ain't no outsider farmers, ain't no outsider mechanics. That's just something that someone's got up to class things. I ignore it.

A: I agree.

I started writing about the similarities between folk art, roots music, and vernacular writing. Plus independent filmmaking.

I called myself a vernacular writer.

Vernacular translates of native-born slaves.

A slave is an ambassador in bonds, who speaks boldly, as one ought to speak. To his master.

Q: Like how?

A: Academy-trained artists look down on self-taught artists.

You can distinguish between a folk and a classical tradition.

The classical is taught in conservatories. There's a body of work that forms a canon. There's a vocabulary for criticizing it in. A critical language.

A folk tradition is more fluid. Less rigid. The artists teach themselves. They may be unaware or related forms, including earlier artists in their own discipline. They may lack a critical lexicon to discuss their work in.

That doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. Or don't have an audience.

Their work is popular. Accessible.

People who buy it may be unsophisticated. Part of its charm is its directness.

Q: When Spike Lee's instructors said he hadn't mastered the grammar of film, he said they were racist.

A: Everything has a grammar.

Ornette Coleman said, "Once I found out I could make a mistake, I knew I was on to something."

Q: Didn't you share a booth at Folk Fest with Big Chief one year?

A: Yes. 2005.

I had Dread Clampitt CDs, album cover art, and a booklet that was like liner notes, Root Doctor.