Patti Smith
People wouldn’t know this about me, but I adore ball gowns. I love their cut, their architecture and the thought of the hands of so many seamstresses working on them.
“A Rare Spirit, a Rarer Eye,” by Ruth La Ferla, The New York Times, March 19, 2010.
It snowed on Christmas night. We walked to Times Square to see the white billboard proclaiming WAR IS OVER! If you want it. Happy Christmas from John and Yoko.
Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 130.
Rimbaud was like my boyfriend. If you’re 15 or 16 and you can’t get the boy you want, and you have to daydream about him all the time, what’s the difference if he’s a dead poet or a senior?
Interviewed by Thurston Moore, BOMB magazine, issue 54, Winter 1996.
He was the artist of my life.
Describing Robert Mapplethorpe, in Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 157.
Now that I’m here, my greatest urge is to speak to you of dental care. My generation had a rough go dentally. Our dentists were the army dentists who came back from World War Two and believed that the dental office was a battle ground. You have a better chance at dental health. And I say this because you want at night to be pacing the floor because your fuse is burning inside of you, because you want to do your work, because you want to finish that canvas, because you want to make that design, because you want to help your fellow man. You don’t want to be pacing because you need a damn root canal. So, floss. You know, use salt and baking soda. Get them professionally cleaned if you can afford it. Take care of your damn teeth.
Commencement speech, Pratt Institute, May 17, 2010.
It was exciting just to stand in front of the hallowed ground of Birdland that had been blessed by John Coltrane, or the Five Spot on St. Mark’s Place where Billie Holiday used to sing, where Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman opened the field of jazz like human can openers.
Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 48.
I was both scattered and stymied, surrounded by unfinished songs and abandoned poems. I would go as far as I could and hit a wall, my own imagined limitations. And then I met a fellow who gave me his secret, and it was pretty simple. When you hit a wall, just kick it in.
Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 170.
He began to branch out, photographing those he met through his complex social life, the infamous and the famous, from Marianne Faithfull to a young tattooed hustler. But he always returned to his muse. I no longer felt that I was the right model for him, but he would wave my objections away. He saw in me more than I could see in myself. Whenever he peeled the image from the Polaroid negative, he would say, “With you I can’t miss.”
Description of Robert Mapplethorpe, in Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 192.
It is said that children do not distinguish between living and inanimate objects; I believe they do. A child imparts a doll or tin soldier with magical life-breath. The artist animates his work as the child his toys. Robert [Mapplethorpe] infused objects, whether for art or life, with his creative impulse, his sacred sexual power. He transformed a ring of keys, a kitchen knife, or a simple wooden frame into art. He loved his work and he loved his things. He once traded a drawing for a pair of riding boots—completely impractical, but almost spiritually beautiful. These he buffed and polished with the devotion of a groom dressing a greyhound.
Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 136.
I didn’t feel for Warhol the way Robert [Mapplethorpe] did. His work reflected a culture I wanted to avoid. I hated the soup and felt little for the can. I preferred an artist who transformed his time, not mirrored it.
Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 69.
I prayed ceaselessly for him, a desperate human prayer. Not for his life, no one could take that cup from him, but for the strength to endure the unendurable.
Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 275.
We headed home holding hands. For a moment I dropped back to watch him walk. His sailor’s gait always touched me. I knew one day I would stop and he would keep on going, but until then nothing could tear us apart.
Describing Robert Mapplethorpe, in Just Kids (New York: Ecco, 2010), 107.