Jim, I think Sean's point was that Art is deliberate ('more purposeful than passive'). I am sure he would acknowledge the art of those singers you name and those unnamed who preceded them. My point is that the Art of the Makar is (at least) as deliberate as the art of the Singer, and I have long felt that there is something wrong with the very notion of a 'folk process'. Maybe I've misunderstood it, but it always sounded to me as something amorphous and aimless rather than the sum of the choices made by individuals whose names we don't happen to know.