from art to music
Youth
As a child, Patti had a knack for storytelling, whether it was relating tales with family, creating fantastic stories during games with siblings and friends, or through her writing in school.
A rare visit to the Museum of Art in Philadelphia at age 12 was her first experience gaining permanent inspiration from many 20th century painters’ work, particularly Picasso, that she would hold onto for the rest of her life: “Secretly I had been transformed” “To be an artist was to see what others could not” (14).
She continued to write and draw into her teenage years: “I drew, I danced, and I wrote poems” (15). She was gifted a book of Diego Rivera paintings by her mother for her 16th birthday.
1967: Patti attended teaching college, factory job, pregnant at age 20: “I held on to the hope I was an artist” (28).
Feeling unfulfilled and like she had reached a dead end, she decided to follow her dream of being an artist and purchased a one-way ticket to New York City to seek out friends at Pratt, hoping to learn from them by being in their midst.
"Just Kids" (1969)
Self-Portrait (1969)
New York City
After weeks spent sleeping on park benches or stoops, Patti repeatedly encounters artist Robert Mapplethorpe, who she seals a lifelong friendship with after spending the night with him. Their being together feels natural, and they live together and make art together.
Robert’s artistic style moves gradually in a dark direction foreign to Patti. The way Patti is compelled to channel the emotion she feels after the abrupt death of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones in 1969 is to compose poems about his death in an orange composition notebook.
by Robert Mapplethorpe (1970)
The Chelsea Hotel
After moving into Hotel Chelsea, a hallowed haven for poets and creators and the home of many similar New York City young artists, Patti and Robert meet everyone who’s anyone in the New York art scenes. One of these greats is beat poet Gregory Corso, whose influence provided Patti with the origins of the attitude and spirit her music is known for having today: “My writing was shifting from the formality of French prose poetry to the bravado of Blaise Cendrars, Mayakovsky, and Gregory Corso. Through them my work developed humor and a little swagger” (210).
At Robert’s urging and his connection to Gerard Malanga, Patti participates in her first poetry reading in 1970 at an open mic moderated by Jim Carroll. Soon afterwards, she buys her first guitar.
Another Chelsea-granted friendship is Bob Neuwirth, folk singer and friend of Bob Dylan. Through Bobby, who urges Patti to write a song after their first meeting, Patti befriends the likes of Janis Joplin and Todd Rundgren. She also begins to set her poetry to music: “I had written ‘Fire of Unknown Origin’ as a poem, but after I met Bobby, I turned it into my first song” (212).
Patti performs in Tony Ingrassia’s play Island, which “gave me the notion that I had a knack for performing” (212). A period of writer’s block leads Patti to the conclusion that “I was getting frustrated with writing; it wasn’t physical enough” (228).
1969
St. Mark's and Poetic Punk
Flyer for Poetry Project reading, Patti Smith and Gerard Malanga (1971)
Patti performs her spoken word poetry accompanied by Lenny Kaye on guitar at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in 1971: “I did it for Rimbaud, and I did it for Gregory. I wanted to infuse the written word with the immediacy and frontal attack of rock and roll” (233). She receives an enthusiastic response, and offers pour in from publishing companies and magazines: “I had no idea how to process such an experience… yet I had to take into account that I seemed to have a whole other side. What it had to do with art I wasn’t certain” (235). “Everything accelerated after Lenny Kaye and I performed at St. Mark’s. My ties with the rock community strengthened” (256).
Patti and her lover Sam Shepherd, whom she met attending his band’s show with Todd Rundgren, write the play Cowboy Mouth together in the spur of the moment: “I found myself at home onstage. I was no actress; I drew no line between life and art” (243). She grows closer to music, having already dabbled in acting and painting.
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Taken at Tenth Street, East Village (1973)
In 1972, Patti’s first small collection of poems is released with the publication of chapbook Kodak by Middle Earth Books. At the same time, Patti explores songwriting.
Seventh Heaven is published, and Patti’s agent Jane Friedman gets her gigs reading poetry in bars, opening for bands like the New York Dolls. The initially unreceptive audience warms up to her and grows in size.
Patti publishes Witt, her third collection of poetry, in 1973. As she continues to perform, she assembles instrument players that eventually comprise the Patti Smith Group.
After recording their first single, “Hey Joe / Piss Factory,” “Piss Factory” being one of Patti’s first poems about her oppressive factory job in South Jersey and her savior Arthur Rimbaud, the group records her debut album Horses at Electric Lady recording studio on September 2nd, 1975.
Quotes and photos from Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco, 2010).