Every once in a while, I come upon a book that I enjoy so much that I look forward to returning to it all day while I’m doing other things.  Moss’s book is one of those.  It’s weighty (404 pages with thick covers and substantial paper for the pages); it’s fascinating in its conversations with creators; it’s thought-provoking; it’s large in its ambition and modest in its conclusions.  And most of all, for someone like me with ADD, it’s constantly changing and endlessly interesting.

Moss, who spent his career as a successful magazine editor first at New York magazine and then at the New York Times Magazine, has taken up painting in his retirement.  Frustrated by his limited ability to transfer images from his brain to the canvas, he becomes obsessed with trying to understand how art is created, or to echo the title, how does something come from nothing?

To answer that question, he interviews 43 creative people, ranging from Will Shortz who creates and edits crossword and other puzzles for the New York Times to Samin Nosrat whose cookbook and TV show “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” were best sellers; from famous writers like Michael Cunningham (“The Hours”), Sheila Heti, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist George Saunders and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks to the Nobel Prize winning poet Louise Gluck; traditional artists like Kara Walker, Amy Sillman, and Barbara Kruger to creatives working in TV and movies; from  Stephen Sondheim to Taylor Mac who created and performed a 24 hour show about popular music from 1776 to the present.  From fashion designer Marc Jacobs to choreographer Twyla Tharp, Moss spoke with interesting, accomplished, creative people who exchanged ideas with him about their creative processes.

Each of the 43 conversations was introduced with information in the upper left corner of the first page:  the artist’s name in large font and underlined, a specific phrase or word from the conversation, a ‘stamp picture’ of the artist (except for Barbara Kruger who didn’t allow Moss to ‘see’ her), the artist’s occupation or medium, the specific work discussed, and the year of the artist’s birth.  From there, Moss sometimes jumps right into the interview which he recorded or provides background information on the artist and why/how he chose the individual.

From those conversations, Moss concludes the following in an Afterword:

“Art has a before and an after.  The before is the training—the acquisition of skills, the assumption of habits.  The after is the practical activity of putting finger to key, palm to clay, and going to town….But there is also an in-between. It’s the mysterious part.  The art—the magic—was the space in the middle, the hole in the doughnut, what happened when they got the before and after right….Artists don’t own imagination.  What they do seem to have is an unusual ability to cross over—to get entrance to that inarticulable place, and then to capture what they can make use of…and turning what they are grasping at, inchoately, into something they can act on….It starts with seeing, but the difference lies in the recognition and receptivity….The really successful artist seems able to not just get the accident going properly but also, more important, know how to harness the result….Artists have certain traits, both inborn and nurtured and that flexibility of movement between their inner and outer selves is key.”

Moss goes on to ‘catalog this magical combination’ as follows: natural ability, intelligence, discipline, curiosity, patience, tolerance for imperfection, decisiveness, relentlessness, faith and conviction. My own list that I culled from the interviews had a lot of overlap with Moss’s, but I would add a  lonely childhood, self-negotiation, waiting and patience and stubbornness, doubt and self-loathing, crushing loneliness and disappointment, absorbedness,, determination, drive, breaking the rules, tolerance for tedium, editing, timing, confidence and faith, simplicity, hard work.  I’m not sure that either Moss’s list or mine provides a recipe for creativity, but it’s a start at describing it.

As  you can tell, I had difficulty briefly summarizing this powerful and inspiring book.  Having come to the end of the adventure, I have a better sense of what drives the individuals who have provided me with hours of pleasure in books, paintings, sculpture, dance, music, and yes, cooking.  Thanks, Alan Moss