Three masterpieces from glimmer through struggle to breakthrough.
For 40 years, I was an editor, mostly of magazines, including this one. As an editor and as a reader, I found the story of how creators create irresistible. I liked that these stories had a classic structure to them — each inherently dramatic, starting with nothing and ending with something. I assigned a story on Stephen Sondheim in which he explained how he wrote a single song. I traced the evolutions of buildings and novels and soap-opera arcs. Cultural procedurals were especially good material.
When I quit my magazine job, I decided to try my hand as an artist. It wasn’t entirely abrupt: In my work, I always found it satisfying telling stories in photographs and graphics and drawings, and in spare moments — a whim at first — I picked up a paintbrush to try making images myself. When I left my job, I began to paint more seriously. That was the beginning of my torment: I just wasn’t very good.
