When Patti Smith accepted her medal last Thursday night she talked about two personal moments in which Katharine Hepburn touched her life. The first was when she, as a young girl, first read Little Women and was introduced to Joe March; Smith described feeling so connected to that character, a boyish and headstrong young woman, a writer. She then described waiting on Katharine Hepburn in New York working in a book store; it was after Spencer Tracy had passed, but Katharine Hepburn would touch some of the books and say, “Spencer would have liked that.” Later, when Smith’s husband died, she remembered that moment and felt better about her own desire to still shop for her husband.

Those descriptions of how Katharine Hepburn helped Patti Smith through two major parts of her life—her difficult adolescence and a large loss—made me think about those people or figures who, just by being themselves, allow us to be ourselves as well. And Robert Mapplethorpe is also a person, as we’ve seen throughout the memoir, who allowed her to become the person she wanted to be, to become her most authentic self.

And, in turn, Patti Smith has become that person for musicians, artists, writers, and even Mawrters. Before accepting this blogging position, Patti Smith felt vague and far way. I was a fan, obviously, but as I read through Just Kids and then processed that reading through various blog posts, her image became sharper and more defined in my head. Then I got to meet her, like really meet her, and she not only lived up to that image, but felt even stronger and even more genuine.

In a very important time in my life, only a few months before I graduate from college, I met a person who told me to go after and work for what I wanted; I met a person who validated my desire to write and create, to perform even if I only know four chords on the guitar; I met a person who reminded me to love the people in my life fully and that there are teachers, collaborators and supporters in surprising and unique places. And, in that way, Patti Smith has pushed me to become my most authentic self as well.

I don’t remember the first time I listened to Horses and I’m not even sure if I liked it that first time; I probably didn’t understand it. However, it still felt like something important. It’s an album I’m still figuring out, an album I’m still in the process of discovering; I go back to it often and I always like it more. “Gloria” is my favorite song and “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine” is like a punch in the stomach every time.

http://youtu.be/xxygqSTO1lQ

Much of the book feels like it’s building towards Horses, and I hear new things after reading it. I feel her power and her creative instinct to merge poetry with the violent sound of rock n’ roll. I picture her in Electric Lady Studios. I hear Robert Mapplethorpe saying, “Patti.” The album’s cover is just as iconic as the music, and my favorite moment of “Separate Ways Together,” maybe even the whole book, is when Smith describes her morning before the photo is taken.

“I rolled out of bed and noticed it was late. I raced through my morning ritual, going around to the Moroccan bakery, grabbing a crusty roll, a sprig of fresh mint, and some anchovies. I came back and boiled water, stuff the pot with mint. I poured olive oil in the open roll, rinsed the anchovies, and laid them inside, sprinkling in some cayenne pepper. I poured a glass of tea and thought better of wearing my shirt, knowing I’d get olive oil on the front of it.”

I love how Smith chooses to slow down the narrative right before such a climatic moment, as if to drain all the excitement out of it; her description of that day is quiet and unassuming, and I was happy to sit with her and dwell in that morning. Even though the photo is probably the most famous of her (I could, again, use the word iconic), the day is described as simple, just like any other. “We never talked about what we would do, or what it would look like,” she says. “He would shoot it. I would be shot.” The photo also brings the story back to Patti and Robert, “When I look at it now, I never see me. I see us.” The reader is reminded of the importance of their relationship here; of course Robert would take the photo, who else could capture her so truthfully?

During a discussion with writer Jonathan Lethem at Cooper Union in 2010, Patti Smith was asked if it was possible for young artists to make it in New York City the same way she did. Smith responded, “New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city.”

Her response summarizes various thoughts I had while reading the first half of Just Kids, especially as I finished “Hotel Chelsea.” Because of the many artists who found success while in New York City like Smith, Mapplethorpe, and others mentioned in this book, a mythology and narrative surrounds it. New York is the place to “make it,” to become the person you were always meant to be. However, the city Smith describes is not the same city that exists today (even if the names of the neighborhoods are the same.)

Although moving to New York is a fundamental part of Smith’s journey, it is the community she finds that inspires her to write poetry and later pair that poetry with Rock n’ Roll. She’s encouraged by this community to express herself through visual art, writing, music, clothing; she is surrounded by people who allow her to be limitless. As I read, I started to believe that Patti Smith is not just punk because of music she creates; it is her willingness to try new things and her DIY (do it yourself) ethic that is punk; it is the idea that you do not have to be a genius or prodigy at something (anything) to try it, use it, or create with it that is punk. Smith writes a play during a sleepless night even though she never had before; she picks up a guitar and teaches herself chords. And it is Smith’s Chelsea community that encourages and fosters this innovation, free expression, and DIY mentality.

There are new cities where creative communities can be built; one does not have to be dependent on what was created by others when something new can be forged. There are people all over the country, some in the most surprising places, who are playing in bands, creating music venues, putting on zine fests, and making art. Here in Philadelphia I am lucky enough to know people who put on plays in living rooms, play punk music in basements, screen print beautiful designs in their homes, and write comics in coffee shops.

I don’t believe Smith’s response is meant to discourage young artists, but rather encourage them to find and shape their own spaces. New York may be filled with exciting people, places and things and it may not be impossible. But there are other cities and the people in those cities are doing something very similar to Smith and her friends in Chelsea: teaching, collaborating, and exploring with one another.

“We were just ourselves that day, without a care. It was our good fortune that this moment in time is frozen in a box camera. It was our first real New York portrait” (110).

I started to think about photography as I read through the first half of “Hotel Chelsea.” The Robert on the page is not yet the Robert Mapplethorpe he will eventually become, the photographer whose portraits and work are both controversial and iconic, the photographer who will take the the photo that will become the cover of Horses. Patti’s and Robert’s evolution into the artists they will one day be is just beginning; she is starting to think about the connection between poetry and song, he is still looking for the perfect medium to create the images he sees in his head.

“I asked him why he just didn’t take his own pictures. ‘Oh it’s too much trouble,’ he’d say. ‘I can’t be bothered and the printing cost too much money.’” He had taken photographs at Pratt, but was too impatient with the time-consuming process of the darkroom” (124).

If you’ll forgive me for saying something obvious, the technology surrounding photography has changed since 1969. Most cell phones have cameras, some cell phones can take impressive and high quality photos. Through social media, online blogging and other sharing platforms, anyone can be a photographer. The tedious process in a darkroom is not longer necessary (though I know some people still prefer it). The taking of a photo, multiple photos, hundreds of photos and then sharing them can happen inexpensively and sometimes for free. People are able to express themselves, create a visual identity, and share how they see the world in an instant.

The widespread availability of this technology is great for poor artists, artists of color, and other groups who, maybe before this time, couldn’t get their hands on the technology or go to school to learn the technical aspects of the craft. I also think about young folks and how they can now use technology that might have been previously out of reach. I currently work for a youth mentoring organization and I see first hand the amazing things they create when given the right tools.

As I read I started to wonder what kind of work Robert Mapplethorpe would have made in the late 1960’s if this new technology would have been available to him. At the same time, I also thought about how the world can feel overly saturated with photographs. I go back to the quote at the beginning of this post and think about how special that first New York portrait is and what it represents. I have many pictures of my loved ones on my cell phone, yet none of them feel like they have the same weight as the picture Patti Smith describes. Despite this, I still believe that the widespread availability of creative technologies to not only take photographs, but also make movies and record music, allows a more diverse group of people to explore their creativity and document their memories.

Even when given two chapters of Just Kids to focus on, the idea of Patti Smith feels too large, too massive to tackle. Looking back at my marginalia, the passages I underlined, scribbled next to, starred and check marked, I could see writing posts about Smith’s representation of gender and androgyny, the artist, even her descriptions of a New York that no longer feels real or even possible. I’m listening to Horses, my personal introduction to Smith years ago, for inspiration. But Smith exists in multitudes and we haven’t quite gotten to her transformation into the “Godmother of Punk” (thought it’s foreshadowed) in the text. Patti Smith is still just a kid.

I’ll try to focus on something more tangible.

Smith’s writing, on a sentence level, is beautiful. It’s romantic. It feels soft and delicate. And, for me, it’s most poignant when she describes her trinkets, her treasures, the things with which she surrounds herself. Her childhood comes alive when she describes the objects she coveted. Her story about Stephanie, a young friend dying of leukemia, though full of sadness and guilt, shows how a simple list of things can also describe the person who owned them and the moment in which they lived. Smith describes Stephanie’s treasures, “In her old cigar box were all the talismanic charms of 1953: a roulette wheel, a typewriter, and ice skater, the red Mobil winged horse, the Eiffel Tower, a ballet slipper, and charms in the shape of all forty-eight states” (7).

Some objects also have power and strength that they give to their possessor. I’m thinking of the Persian necklace purchased by Robert Mapplethorpe before the two even knew one another: “The necklace was passed back and forth throughout the years. Ownership was based on who needed it most” (51). Objects can become symbols, not only in literature, but also in our own lives. It’s important that Robert picks out her favorite necklace when he was still a stranger; the necklace becomes a symbol of their quiet understanding of one another as well as their mutual yearning to keep each other safe.

These treasures that Smith describes are not representations of greed or consumerism, but of memory, love, and art. Maybe the artist can transform the mundane into art because the artist can see the life and importance others cannot. Things that might be deemed worthless can be the most important. Like the “marbleized candy dish with a purple cow lid” Robert becomes fond of when visiting Smith’s parents house: “He was delighted with it, so much so that years later, after he died, it was found displayed among his most valuable Italian vases” (52).

Smith gives every single object weight and importance, and it made me think about the objects in my own life; the things that I brought from California when I came to Bryn Mawr; the things that I continue to move from dorm room to dorm room, from apartment to apartment: a wind-up music box, a red mug with a chipped lid, a tin full of magnets.