Patti Smith Never Picked a Lane. Why Should You?

Karya Öner
11 hours ago
4 min read

Last summer, I read Just Kids by Patti Smith. It was a memoir, an autobiography, but it was so much more than that. It told a love story, one that moved back and forth between platonic and romantic, but most of all, it was about two people whose art blended into each other, who drew inspiration from each other, from their love, from their courage, and who supported each other through hard times.

The love and artistic bond between Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith moved me so much that I cried over a book for the first time in a long while. The book moves through Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, all the names that filled that world at the time. Reading about the Chelsea Hotel in the 60s and 70s, it almost felt like I was there too, like I could walk into the lobby and see Salvador Dalí sitting there, surrounded by raw emotions, long conversations and collaborations, filled with inspiration just from feeding off all of that. Within that world, what stayed with me most was how Robert and Patti carried each other through it.

Patti talks about how Robert encouraged her, saying in her interview with Dua Lipa that when she doubts herself, she goes back to him and hears his voice, and that he was brave in his art. What struck me the most was his work ethic. They had no money, their conditions were far from good, yet every night, without knowing what the future held, he kept creating, discovering himself, experimenting and taking risks. What inspired me most in both of them was how fearlessly they tried different art forms, never staying loyal to just one.

Patti wrote poetry, painted, took photographs and, in the end, became known as a musician, but the medium never mattered. The only thing she truly knew was that she wanted to create. What she describes isn't really a decision about which art form to master. It's something that comes from further inside than that, an urge that exists before the medium is even chosen. As she put it, being an artist meant learning "to see what others could not." She also writes, early on, that she "had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist," though she "hungered to be one." That line stayed with me because it isn't proof or talent that makes someone an artist at the start. It's that hunger, and everything else follows from it.

Thinking about my own path, I realised that doing only one thing in art, purely to become a professional or to shine at it, would have made it feel like a job instead of something I actually wanted. I have always had this excitement to keep trying different mediums, and I still do. Having small skills in many things, staying curious, doesn't feel like a flaw to me. Yes, we have to make money, but giving ourselves room to experiment makes life more meaningful. Art especially should come from curiosity, not rules someone else decided on. Having a signature style is really just one chapter in a much longer journey.

To me, being scattered is far better than boxing yourself into a single mould and following it blindly.

I've always heard the familiar warnings that you can't earn a living unless you specialise, that art demands loyalty to one medium or you'll end up lost. Patti and Robert seemed to have never heard that warning at all. They drifted between mediums like it was the most natural thing in the world, unafraid of not knowing where any of it would lead.

One of my favourite parts of the book captures that spirit perfectly: an afternoon they spend in Washington Square. They were walking towards the fountain, the epicentre of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed them. Robert enjoyed being noticed and affectionately squeezed her hand. "Oh, take their picture," the woman said to her bemused husband. "I think they're artists." "Oh, go on," he shrugged, "they are just kids." I like to think that line is part of where the book's title came from, an offhand comment turning, years later, into the name of the story of everything they became.

In the end, Patti is one of the artists who has inspired me the most because she speaks to that child inside me who wants to create no matter what happens, who wants to keep going, who wants to follow their own stubborn path. It was Robert who asked her to write this book, who told her to tell their story, and according to Patti, writing it took her ten years, and she considers it her greatest masterpiece.

Something else that stayed with me is how much Patti's own mother shaped her. From very early on, her mother gave her unconditional support, nurturing her imagination and encouraging her to create without ever pushing her towards something more practical. Maybe that's part of where Patti's fearlessness came from in the first place.

Maybe, just as Patti found strength and inspiration in her mother and later in Robert, I found mine in my own mother. She has been my biggest support in this. She never once told me to be practical instead of pursuing art. She never asked what I was going to do with it. She has always simply believed in me, and without her, I don't think I would have been able to take the steps I am taking now.