The Work of Art

December 15, 2023
A magazine editor asks a few dozen artists about their processes. Moss, the former editor-in-chief of New York magazine, has always been fascinated by evidence that shows "artists caught in the act of making art...tossed-off sketches and more considered studies, unfinished work, meandering notes to self, scribbled lyric fragments, marked-up text, mad outlines. I find them almost inexplicably beautiful in all their genres." In this handsome book, he interviews more than 40 creators in all disciplines who "walk me through, in as much detail as they could muster, the evolution of a novel, a painting, a photograph, a movie, a joke, a song, and to supply physical documentation of their process." Many of the creators are well known, including Stephen Sondheim, Louise Gl�ck, Twyla Tharp, and George Saunders. Others may be either less familiar or not someone readers would expect to see in a book about artists--such as Moses Sumney, a genre-blurring Ghanaian American singer-songwriter with an "ethereal falsetto"--Moss calls him an "indie sexpot"--and Ian Adelman and Calvin Seibert, creators of elaborate sand castles, who intrigued Moss with their devotion to "creating something meant to perish." The book is amply illustrated, with sketches for dress designs, notes on animation, preliminary concepts for buildings, doodled ideas on coffee-stained napkins, and more. Moss occasionally makes curious statements, as when he writes that Sofia Coppola "had a childhood of privilege, which only makes her emergence as a major filmmaker that much more impressive to me." Even those who agree she's a fine director might argue that being Francis Ford Coppola's daughter may have eased her path to prominence. For the most part, however, this is an inspiring work, especially for anyone struggling to create art and wondering whether the slogs and endless false starts are worth the effort. An encouraging book dedicated to the pleasures and agonies of making art.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from January 15, 2024
A panoply of artists offer a rare peek into the mysteries and mundanities of the creative process in this captivating compendium. Former New York magazine editor Moss (coeditor, New York Stories) asked writers George Saunders and Louise Glück, filmmaker Sofia Coppola, New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz, chef Jody Williams, and others to walk him through “in as much detail as they could muster” the life span of a single piece of art, providing along the way such “physical documentation” as annotated pages and coffee-stained napkin drawings. Profile subjects tell of building failure into the process, painting over canvases, and working in longhand to write “freer.” George Saunders gave himself six months to “just goof around” as he waited for another book’s release date before something “kicked... open in my head” and he started work in earnest on what became Lincoln in the Bardo. Elsewhere, Louise Glück speaks of the often-maddening value of patience (“you can will things, but whenever I’ve tried to do that, the poem just goes to hell”). Moss concludes on a fascinating note, musing that while “artists don’t have more interesting dreams than the rest of us,” they do possess “an unusual ability to cross over—to get entrance to that inarticulable place, and then to capture what they can make use of.” It’s a must-read for creatives of all stripes. Agent: David Kuhn, Aevitas Creative Management.