The Artist’s Responsibility

“Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.”

-       Patti Smith, Just Kids.

It’s April 23rd, 2024 and I can’t help but feel my life’s trajectory has been set anew. That sounds extreme but somehow it doesn’t feel it. The last 48 hours have been entirely ordinary save my long-overdue reading of Just Kids. This book seems to have waited for me, watching from my shelf patiently anticipating its upheaval of my being. I first came across it longer ago than I care to admit but I had never rushed to pick it up. I had ceaselessly told friends that it will be my favourite book and for that reason I wanted to save it for a moment I felt ready to read it. It would eventuate that a moment of readiness was not what I sought, but in a fragment of cosmic choreography, the book would present itself to me. Not 24 hours earlier, I had stumbled my way through an arcane discussion on my feelings towards art, music and culture. I recall knowing precisely how to answer a question around what drives me in life but in that moment of absolute conviction, the words would not give themselves to me and I was left feeling unconvinced that I could satisfy the image of my life’s desires in an answer. The very next day a friend was holding none other than the very book that had, until this point, eluded me and the book that would guide me towards the answer to my seminal question.

Just Kids is a love letter to a person, a time and a place. At first glance one could gather the story is a tribute to a lover of long ago, which in some sense it is, but the reader would be remiss to disregard the poetry, elegy and requiem those 280 pages reveal. Patti Smith crafts a love language unheard in this story and within it I repeatedly saw myself, in triumph and struggle, in a heedless and unforgiving pursuit of the very lifeblood of this book; art itself. The story sings praises of the people and places of a generation. From the Beat Poets in Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac to the voices that would redirect the course of American rock music from Jimi Hendrix to Janis Joplin to Bob Dylan. Patti dictates her journey from admiration to inevitable conquest of the lives and worlds of these stars whilst painting the picture of a then unassuming NYC arts scene. Casual recollections of now iconic dwellings serve the fable of a culture and time that would be lost by an inexorable revolution, it becomes difficult not to mourn a period of history that was not lost so to speak, but inevitably replaced as the times and systems of society and the world moved away. From this the reader can gather Smith’s titular intention does not merely reflect a story of lovers, but a generation of artists who were, and infinitely are, Just Kids.

I found within this book that I related intensely to the pursuits of Patti, Robert and the countless inhabitants of 1960’s New York City. The book is a revolving door of artists and figures of significance in the world of art which would seemingly hold court in the boroughs and dens of The Big Apple and the famed Chelsea Hotel. A consistent theme within Just Kids is the commonalities of the comers and goers of the city and its myriad of bars, bookshops and jazz clubs which would afford these artists the means for creative outlet and expression they so desperately desired. Be it a stage, a pen or a canvas, New York City provided in abundance the keys to locked dreams and salvations these people harboured and represented.  Patti herself was no stranger to this calling, moving to New York in pursuit of something more simple but infinitely more important than a disposition or idea. Patti sought the flesh of her identity, sustenance for her heart’s desires and the nutrient for her soul’s cravings. She writer and dreams within her could not be realised in her humble home of New Jersey and like a lot of artists she was achingly aware of it. Then, when the fateful day would come, she had no intention of ignoring the call to artistic arms she had long been bracing for.

While I do not identify with Patti’s yearning for New York, nor her abundantly powerful talent and prose as a writer, I realised in this story a wanting for a formative piece of my life’s puzzle. For so long I have been achingly aware of my need to immerse myself in art and music but the rational side of me has long dismissed this need as a practical lifestyle. But Just Kids has affirmed to me that a life in art is not only a life worth living but an artist’s prerogative. This book has lit the path I feel I am destined to take. A path that might not lead to a stage or a canvas, but one that is bordered by expression, sounded by song and one that is announced endlessly by like-minded people. The fruition of this life is not yet revealed to me, nor is it innately evident how my arrival will be realised. But the path is lit. Throughout this book Patti refers back to moments of equal parts uncertainty and clarity, where days were ambiguous, but the path lay revealed, and she needed only to remain on it. I guess that’s how I feel now. I think this book has unclouded the passing of days seemingly wasted and declared to me that a realised path towards a righteous tomorrow is as crucial, if not more, than a want for a today of satisfied existence.

(Header Image Credit: Classic.com)