It is always a question of whether an action is intended. Let it be a burst of anger at someone after a long day or eating a biscuit when you are fighting the anticipation for lunch.

Was it the long day or the person who angered you? Which one has guided eating, the temptation of crisp biscuits or the hunger? Either way, it is almost impossible to discern what anyone intended to do or not do.

This leads me to the focus of this article: the yearning to understand artists' approaches as they begin to build their work brick by brick satisfied in Adam Moss’ The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing.

Are the artist’s intentions worth contemplating at all?
 

This book is a tour of several artists’ minds. A journey with infinite branches of ideas sometimes results in nothing and sometimes shows us that unexpected paths are the ones which usually cause the artist to beam with their success.

His interviews cover diverse art forms and the different mediums on which they were formed. More precisely, Moss traces the ideas that echoed in the artist’s mind before revealing the results, which are sometimes a mere soundwave amid the chaos that is the thoughts of a creative.

Contrary to the title, the book does not discuss the art pieces helpfully included in the book, but rather the “process.” Moss highlights the "process" as a crude word and almost an oversimplification compared to its meaning.

He says “Process is an ugly-sounding word — pedestrian jargon for the inherently wondrous act of creation — but it describes a method by which a thing evolves, which has always had a hold on [him].” I had to pause at this line and reflect on any process in any profession.

For any non-artistic readers, this concept still stands. If you are a doctor going through the process to reach your end goal of treating patients or a lawyer reading through stalks of books, the process you go through is a simple word for uneducated ears which carries sweat and tears hidden only in the head of the speaker. As a journalist, Moss relates to this not only artistically when he began to attempt painting, but in a completely individual way too as described.

Having 48 main interviews with artists, architects, painters, singers, writers, and many more creative individuals, Moss presents us with an educated perspective on the question posed at the beginning of this article to which there seems to be no answer at all.

His meeting with Eric Fischl prefaces the series of interviews as it portrays how a painting came to paint itself. Starting with a fruit ball and ending with two new characters, one of whom is a boy who became the “twelve-year-old boy stealing money from the purse,” but “started as an infant, lying next to the woman; then became a five-year-old sitting on the edge of the bed … He literally grew up in that room …,” remarks Fischl.

This particular quote interested me as it strongly suggested that art has a mind of its own. While this is not a new concept, having previously been discussed by the post-structuralist writer Roland Barthes in his Essay ‘The Death of the Author’ in 1967, this book approaches this discussion from an unconventional viewpoint.

Post-structuralism questions the objectivity of art in favour of suggesting that a greater importance is found in the individual's subjective understanding.

Although Moss seems to agree, he seems to reach this understanding by valuing the artist's thinking process, as something seldom understood, suggesting that the art is always the main highlight rather than the artist. However, after reading the book I thought that Moss immensely respects the artist’s loss when approaching art, but agrees to allow them to exist separately.

In his interview with Barbra Kruger, the main focus is “Enough about me/What about me?” Kruger is a fascinating artist with a rich story of how she became an artist. However, what is in my opinion more interesting is her evident reluctance to discuss herself saying “Ugh, I am so sick of the sound of my own voice.”

Throughout the interview, she highlights how her chosen type of art to make pictures with text evolved organically rather than having any intention behind it. She isolates her story when discussing her upbringing and political standing from the art she produced, suggesting that she wants the art, in a sense, to speak with its tongue. This is quite literal for Kruger, with the text and use of the direct address in her pieces inviting the viewer to communicate with the talking art.

Another personal favourite interview is with Marie Howe, a poet known for her heart-wrenching verses. I found surprising comfort in her words: “I don’t know what I’m doing … But I never do.”

After a long career, these are the professional words of a true artist approaching her work. The intention behind making poetry was to have no intentions at all and let the unconscious mind control her.

In a way, she ceased to exist when her words came to life. As Moss discussed with her The Singularity poem, she thought through the editing process of that particular poem. Her main issue with her work seemed to be its simplicity despite being an “aspiration” for many of the artists in the book — to condense a piece of art to its vital parts.

She saw the simple nature of her poems as too bland which is an interesting perspective. It again isolates the artist from their art by showing contradictory reflections on the piece of work.

Marie Howe strongly focused on who she addressed when she wrote her poems. “If I don’t know who I’m talking to, then I don’t know what I’m talking about.” She became aware that she was losing, with age, the friends she showed her work to, making it difficult to write with no one “waiting for [her].” 

However, conflictingly, Howe expressed to Moss that the most productive emotion for her work is "loneliness," she answered quickly.

In this, Howe unintentionally expressed how while loneliness is imminent and even necessary, at the age of almost 70, being alone was not appealing or the same as sitting "in [her] nightgown for days, not thinking about anyone else."

Solitude to her was only beautiful when you know that there are people you are distancing yourself from. Howe proved that the poets' intentions, from her perspective, are at a liminal point. They never really exist, but are instead like roads building a route as the car drives through, following the wheels even when the car spins in circles or moves through uncharted territories. They are forever searching for a final destination, a meaning for the poem and a journey through it, which even the poet may never know.

While the words in this article only covered a handful of artists, it is highly recommended to take a deeper dive into his book, which will leave you both more educated about an artist’s thinking and infinitely more confused.

His opinions which are scattered throughout the book are also a key element, which you can trust to be enjoyable. It is as though we had entered Adam Moss’s mind as a writer crafting his own "work of art," which also came from "nothing."