Spark: How Creativity Works [Hardcover]

Julie Burstein (Author), Kurt Andersen (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 15, 2011

“This is a book about joy, drive and art, work that we’re all capable of if we’ll only commit.” —Seth Godin, author of Linchpin

Public Radio International’s Julie Burstein, creator of the award-winning program Studio 360, along with its host Kurt Andersen, offers a rare, fascinating glimpse into some of the 21st century's greatest creative minds—from Yo-Yo Ma and Robert Plant to Mira Nair and Chuck Close, to David Milch and Joyce Carol Oates, to Rosanne Cash and beyond. Fans of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, Rosamund Zander’s The Art of Possibility, and Lynda Barry’s What It Is will be enthralled and electrified by this unique look at the creative process of the world’s most talented and prolific artists.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Over the past 10 years, numerous artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers have sat down with host Kurt Anderson in his acclaimed public radio show, Studio 360, to reflect on the power of art and the nature of creativity. Pulling from those interviews, Burstein, the show's producer, gathers a diverse cast of characters (Chuck Close, Richard Ford, Isabel Allende, and Patti Lupone among them) who share their thoughts about the sources of their creativity: the influence of their parents, of place, or of a shattering event, or the stimulation of working with a creative partner. Rosanne Cash tells about the moment that liberated her from anger at her father, Johnny Cash. Poet Stanley Kunitz draws his deepest inspiration from the bounty of a garden he created out of a sand dune. The photographer William Christenberry draws sustenance and inspiration from his home county in Alabama, returning there every year to photograph farms, churches, and roadside cafes. Through enlightening conversations, these creative individuals demonstrate how they lift raw materials out of familiar contexts and create art that changes how we perceive the world. (Mar.)
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Review

“Spark is a beautiful book, enjoyable and filled with life...You will find yourself contemplating the origin of the little lights, the sparks, which show themselves only when someone special looks within.” (Philadelphia Inquirer )

“This is a book about joy, drive and art, work that we’re all capable of if we’ll only commit.” (Seth Godin, author of Linchpin )

“Through enlightening conversations, these creative individuals demonstrate how they lift raw materials out of familiar contexts and create art that changes how we perceive the world.” (Publishers Weekly )

“Burstein offers enlightening answers from the culture’s heavy hitters, as well as the process by which they stoked these embers into a roaring fire, and how you, yes, you, might too.” (Vanity Fair )

“Spark is an encyclopedia of inspiration plucked from today’s most revered creators, leaving you not with a one-size-fits-all blueprint to creativity but with a petri dish of eclectic insights for you to distill, cross-pollinate and fertilize into a richer understanding of your own creative life.” (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings )

“How better to learn about creativity than to talk with some of the world’s most creative people.” (Detroit Free Press )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper (February 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061732311
• ISBN-13: 978-0061732317
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #377,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julie Burstein is a Peabody Award-winning radio producer, best-selling author, and public speaker who has spent her working life in conversation with highly creative people - interviewing, probing, guiding, and creating public radio programs about them and their work. In Spark: How Creativity Works, she maps out some of the coordinates and dimensions of creativity. No one can exactly explain creativity, but Julie offers a tour through some of its essential byways; shining a beam onto its mysterious workings in a way that is illuminating and can help us find more of that dimension within ourselves, and put it to good use.

The TED conference asked Julie to speak at TED2012, and she often gives talks about creativity and innovation at museums, corporations, and universities. She is sought after as a panel moderator for venues such as the American Museum of Natural History, WNYC, Wesleyan University, NYC Wildflower Week, and the Brooklyn Book Festival and World Science Festival.

In 2000, Julie created Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen for Public Radio International, public radio's premiere program about creativity, entertainment and the arts. She led the Studio 360 creative team at WNYC for many years. Julie is also known for her engaging on-air presence as a frequent guest host on The Leonard Lopate Show, she has created radio series for Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic, and her many stories about arts and culture have appeared on public radio, from the secret to making Easter Peeps and Bunnies and the art of pumpkin carving for NPR, to reports about design, music, dance, theater, and visual arts for Studio 360 and Marketplace.

Julie is the host of pursuitofspark.com, conversations about creative approaches to the challenges, possibilities, and pleasures of everyday life and work.

When "Spark" was published in February, 2011, Vanity Fair wrote "In Spark (Harper), Burstein, with a foreword by Andersen, offers enlightening answers from the culture's heavy hitters, including Chuck Close, Yo-Yo Ma, and Richard Ford, on which experiences, memories, tragedies, or landscapes ignited their imaginations, as well as the process by which they stoked these embers into a roaring fire, and how you, yes, you, might too."

You can find out more at julieburstein.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Thin, Sometimes Interesting Profiles February 15, 2011

By Ann Arbor Reader

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I don't mean to be unkind here because I appreciate the concept and organization of this book. I wanted to like it much more than I did.

Still, after shelling out good money for the hardcover, I'm ultimately disappointed by what's here. To me, it feels insubstantial, and I wish I had looked through it carefully in a bookstore before purchasing.

Each of the features here (exploring the creative process of several different writers, artists, musicians, etc.) feels quite brief. Some of the profiles are as short as 2-3 pages and come full of journalistic exposition/background.

This is fine in theory, but when I buy a book that promises "How Creativity Works" in its subtitle, I'm hoping for deeper, richer quotations from the profiled artists and less background filler. Do I really need to read, for example, that "[Kevin] Bacon, who starred in films like Footloose, JFK, and Apollo 13, is also renowned as the central character in the trivia game 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon...'"

(And, no offense, but can Kevin Bacon really help us understand how creativity works? Don't get me wrong--I really like the guy's work, but this just isn't what I hoped for.)

Even the longer pieces still feel thin and full of sound bites, rather than concerted reflection on creativity. You may enjoy it if you're looking for brief, breezy slices of NPR-style interview. But if, like me, you were hoping for some sustained dialogue and thinking from these artists, you may want to save your money.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Plain and simple, don't buy this book March 20, 2011

By ChrisStemp

Format:Hardcover

I don't often comment here on amazon, but this one really prompted me to let everyone know what they are getting themselves into. First of all, the hardcover is around $25 and for that much I have some expectations. Second, the book promises to tell you how creativity works but instead just reads as if it's a transcript from interviews done on a radio show years ago from a lot of people that you've probably never heard of. I don't like sounding harsh, but I was REALLY disappointed with this book. The introduction seems great, I do believe that Julie has a good background to write about the subject of creativity and has some valuable insight; however, she rarely imparts her own wisdom. Instead it seems like just a ploy to use her past interviews to make some money through book sales. It's not worth your time, you won't gain much at all.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique Lives Produce Creativity January 27, 2011

By Terri J. Rice TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I am so excited about this book. It is fascinating to read how successful artsy people excelled.

One of the artists interviewed said, "If you wait for clouds to part and be struck with a bolt of lightning, you're likely to be waiting the rest of your life. But if you simply get going something will occur to you."

I was struck by the fact that overcoming adversity in some way was often the key to creativity.

Chuck Close, a very famous portrait painter, had to overcome prosopagnosia- the inability to recognize faces. Imagine! because he could not recognize individual's faces he became a portrait painter. He drew a grid on photographs and took the face square by square and created these wonderful portraits, and in the process was able to recognize faces from his artwork. And when you think proopagnosia is enough of a detriment for this portraitist, he has a spinal aneurysm which leave him paralyzed from the neck down in a matter of hours.

The tragically beautiful way that Donald Hall, already a great poet, became greater was through the death of his much younger wife, Jane Kenyon. The grief and mourning that Hall captures in his poetry, Without, is something no human being could fake.

When the artist was confined in some way, either by placing his/her own parameters or confined from something beyond his/her control, the art was better.

Ben Burtt, the noise behind Star Wars and Wall-E, limits himself in that the noises he 'invents' come from everyday life and are not simply digitally or electronically produced. The hum of the saber came from the hum of an interlock motor on a projector coupled with the sound from a broken microphone passing by a television set, picking up a buzz from the television....
On and on, I read of these amazing artists who became amazing because they were willing to go through the trials with which their lives had confronted them, and they produced triumphant, glorious art.

Or Ang Lee, a first son of Chinese parents, he was expected to go to college and excel in that way. And yet, he could not push his love of theatre and movies out of his mind. Across the world, James Schamus was growing up watching and loving movies. These two men manage to connect and go on to make incredibly artistic films.

These stories come by way of Public Radio International's weekly broadcast, Studio 360, hosted by Kurt Anderson. Never heard of it before, I am glad to be introduced via this book.

You will be inspired. Read more ›

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Mini-bios of fascinating people February 4, 2011

By Ivy VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

These are a series of biographies drawn from the various guests on NPR's Studio 360 (an awesome show, btw). It's divided thematically,

The first section, Engaging Adversity, is about why people create, what drives them, what needs the activity answers. Donald Hall, for example, writes poems to grieve the loss of his wife.

Modern Alchemy is about how the wizards do what they do. In one article, Beb Burtt explains how he made the sound effects for Star Wars.

The Cultivated and the Wild deals with nature in art. I particularly liked the section on Julie Bargmann where she goes into ecological wastelands, landscapes them, cultivates them, and heals them.

Going Home is about place, and here the standout is Alexander Payne and his love of Omaha.

Imagination's Wellspring is the section that comes closest to fulfilling the promise of the book's subtitle. Richard Ford tells about how events from his childhood (including a very disturbing incident with the family cat) made their way into his novels.

The remaining sections are: Mothers and Fathers, Creative Parners, Rewaeaving A Shattered World, and, my favorite, Getting to Work.

The only downside is that most of these bios are very short, 3-4 pages. Each feels a little rushed. I find it charming that the book starts and ends with Chuck Close. Overall, very good.