updated 7d ago
The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing
I had to start writing. I wrote an almost entire first draft of the book, and it was not good. I wrote it like two and a half times. And I couldn’t get there. There was one moment—I was supposed to have a phone call with the editor one morning. I was so desperate and sad—at my wit’s end, I just didn’t know what to do. The draft I had sent her, she
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sari added 3mo ago
On the trip, we were talking and I told him, “I’ve been putting this pressure on myself to come up with an idea of a book to write that would be groundbreaking.” He said, “Write the book you already know.” I said, “I guess the book should just be this philosophy that I have: salt, oil, acid, heat.” He said, “No one’s ever said that before. It’s a g
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sari added 1mo ago
When you’re working, there’s so much self-loathing. Everyone feels like their stuff is awful. When I was at CalArts I was studying painting—I’m a terrible painter—but I remember there’s a stage of a painting that just looks like a mess and then all of a sudden it becomes a painting. Movies are like that too. Magically it starts to take shape. Now I
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sari added 1mo ago
As I am writing this, I find myself constantly tempted to use the word miracle to describe the wonderful thing that art is. It’s such a ready description: a hardwired cliché. But I resist, because I am trying to describe art making to mean its exact opposite.
from The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by Adam Moss
sari added 1mo ago
“My notebook is the microbial fungus of ideas and images I draw on when I’m writing,” he said when we first spoke.
from The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by Adam Moss
sari added 3mo ago
On the trip, we were talking and I told him, “I’ve been putting this pressure on myself to come up with an idea of a book to write that would be groundbreaking.” He said, “Write the book you already know.” I said, “I guess the book should just be this philosophy that I have: salt, oil, acid, heat.” He said, “No one’s ever said that before. It’s a g
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sari added 3mo ago
Art requires access to the imagination, a notoriously difficult place to visit. The imagination fuels an idea. The artist acts urgently, often impulsively, on that idea but brings conscious rigor to the evaluation of what the imagination has spewed. Ultimately, experience, intellect, insight, and drive enable them to shape the work and then to edit
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sari added 4mo ago
Adam Moss: I was hoping we could discuss the relationship of anxiety to drive, because I think it’s an important note for the book, and people often, at least implicitly, bring it up. And you’re candid and articulate enough to— Ira Glass: Nice flattery! As a fellow interviewer, I’m respecting the flattery. All right. I need a harsh deadline to get
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sari added 1mo ago
I wrote, “You might be wondering if I’m stalking you. Well, the answer is yes. I’m obsessed with your work—obsessed, and I have a secret dream, about to be not so secret, that we can collaborate and that you’ll illustrate the cookbook, let’s call it better than a cookbook, that I’m starting to work on. I love your work, you are the Maira Kalman[ ]
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sari added 1mo ago