How to Make Something From Nothing

Adam Moss shares 5 insights from The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing.

Photo by Frankie Cordoba on Unsplash

Where does great art come from? If you’ve ever wondered about this, you’ll want to check out these key insights from the New York Times bestselling book The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by Adam Moss. Adam is the former editor of New York magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and 7 Days, and for his book he interviewed some of the leading creatives of our times, artists working in film, music, literature, painting, comedy and more. Here he is to share 5 of his big ideas.

1. Hack your way through the wreckage.

The work of artists requires perseverance through failure. Every artist fails over and over again. I should have known this, but I was always surprised, perhaps because I romanticize artists so much. It is the spine of every narrative in the book: the most successful artists simply persist. They do not give up when almost everybody else probably would.