“The Work of Art” by Adam Moss is a handsome, strikingly designed, color-glossy book of interviews with all manner of artists - along with personal comments.
“The Work of Art.” It’s a clever title because it references a work of art AND the process of making it - the “work” of getting to the finished piece from inspiration and drafts. I’m not sure though if the subtitle works --“how something comes from nothing” –because, thanks to the full and fascinating exploration and examples Moss provides – journals, recordings, scribbles, studies, notes, doodles -- so-called “nothing” - was always there, “hibernating,” waiting for “when people cease to police their imagination,” as Moss quotes Freud on creativity.
Moss also cites the contemporary painter Francis Bacon’s sly comment, “I don’t think I’m gifted, I just think I’m receptive.” As is Moss. He’s smart, modest, open to readers dipping in where they want when they want. There’s no set order. The tone is more informal, more so than for most Q. and A’s.
The uniqueness of this interview collection can be seen in smaller-type, boxed-in commentary that personalizes almost every page, turning a book about others into a memoir. Moss’s voice is distinct - sympathetic,
appreciative, confessional, generous, curious, humorous -as he compares the anguish and achievements of others with his own continuing struggles to be a painter. He includes his tutor, a visual artist, among the interviewees.
There are many memorable quotations in The Work of Art, the work of years, with profuse thanks to those who lent an eye or ear to its formation, including his therapist. The book is clearly a work of love that Moss engaged in once he retired as editor-in-chief of New York Magazine, and before that as an editor at The New York Times, Esquire, Seven Days – an incredibly impressive accumulation of expertise and of friendships he has obviously kept along the way.
The book features a diverse community of creative types of all genres, ages, modes, ethnicities, degree of recognition, as well as nice snippets of information. Who knew that The New York Times Crossword editor and NPR puzzle master Will Shortz, edits approximately half of the entries he accepts? Or that Stephen Sondheim was New York Magazine’s first puzzle constructor! Or that public radio host Ira Glass’s cousin is the American composer and pianist Philip Glass, whose views on art differ dramatically from Ira’s own.
The official count of interviewees is 41, but it’s actually more, considering collaborators. The artists include painters, writers, sculptors, musicians, comedians, designers, conjurers, photographers, chefs, dancers, TV and film producers, builders of sandcastles, cartoonists, and architects, many of whom are gay and all of whom dish out goodies about the way they work. Particularly instructive are the sections given over to works in stages, final products often at great variance from the way the artist started out.
Moss looks for commonalities in the creative process less intimidating, though he knows that except for the press of deadlines plus an inner confidence, a bit of outrage, and a mentor early on, Sondheim had Oscar Hammerstein, there is little that unites his subjects that could constitute guidelines or advice. He also acknowledges that “for a work to be successful, it must match its moment in some way. As he says, “timing isn’t everything, but it’s a lot.”
Still, for those like Moss, eager and persistent to get to the point where creative and critical impulses work together, The Work of Art can prove inspirational.
