Constructing a lineage

Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, and building art alongside our heroes.

Patti Smith, early 1970s

Last week, we ventured into the city to see Patti Smith perform songs and share stories and photos from her new book, A Book of Days.

The photo above was included in her performance, and here’s the story she told about it: It was New York in the early 70s, and the romance between her and Robert Mapplethorpe had ended. Still, she said, they couldn’t stand to live apart, so they inhabited a loft with a wall between them.

On that wall, she’d plastered photos of all her heroes. This photo of Bob Dylan fell off the wall one day, and she held it up while a photographer friend snapped a picture.

Her admiration and love for Dylan was apparent, and years later, she stepped out on stage with him, barefoot and wearing a dress, to sing Dark Eyes together. They shared a microphone, their faces so close that their sweat was mingling. She still seemed awed by it.

If you are at all familiar with Patti Smith, either through her writing, interviews, or music, you know that she is forthright about her heroes, mainly writers and poets, almost to the point of a seeming obsession. She frequently brings up William Blake, Rimbaud, Genet – artists who lived lives of poverty, their genius often unrecognized, but who held to their vision to the end.

It made me think of the idea of artistic heroes as teachers, passing along a lineage of ideas and style to the future. And those future generations take up that view, expand it, and push it into a new direction. It’s by persisting, creating new variations on this heritage, that something new and worthwhile is created.

As artists David Bayles and ted Orland say in their book, Art & Fear:

"Beethoven’s early compositions, for instance, show the unmistakable influence of his teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn. Most early work, in fact, only hints at the themes and gestures that will — if the potential isn’t squandered — emerge as the artist’s characteristic signature in later, mature work. At the outset, however, chances are that whatever theme and technique attract you, someone has already experimented in the same direction."

The essential ingredients there are time and persistence. It takes work to move beyond inspiration, to create something that is truly your own.

But with Patti Smith’s work, there’s another ingredient. It isn’t just a matter of picking up an existing artistic style and taking it in a new direction. Her heroes are varied, from the wild and romantic poetry of Blake to Allen Ginsburg to early punk. It’s the way she combines all these influences, breaking them up and putting them back together in her own, pure, Patti way.

She’s crafted a lineage of diverse teachers, bringing their ideas and aesthetics into a new world, letting them speak to each other and to say something new. There is no one like Patti.

PS:

Patti Smith

also has a newsletter on substack.

A New Direction

I know, I just started this newsletter, and I’ve already come up with a new direction.

But after coming across Robin Sloan’s advice for newsletter-ers recently, I’ve become enchanted with the idea of writing in seasons. The whole idea merges so elegantly with my motivation for beginning this project – to better understand the relationship between time and everyday acts of creativity.

Plus, next week is the winter solstice, so what better time to start?

My plan is a week-by-week tour of my own output, inspiration, and thoughts on creativity as we go through each season – winter, spring, summer, and fall.

And, of course, links.

I think it’ll be fun.

Head, Heart, Hands

Things to make us think, feel, and do.

• I am not sure how he does it, but everything Oliver Burkeman writes makes me see my life from a new angle. In this piece, he explains why urgency doesn’t exist.

• How to spend time on what you value. I’m trying, I really am.

• I recently discovered the blog/work/newsletter of illustrator Rebecca Green, and absolutely love the way she puts her process on display. I have always loved watching a work in progress. Her recent post on getting through a creative lull is a very honest look at the natural dips in creative output.

• Athletes (including enthusiastically mediocre ones like myself) use macro-, meso-, and micro-cycles in their training in order to progress while managing fatigue. I think we can do the same in our lives.

• It warmed my heart to see this profile in GQ on Los Bros Hernandez, who are absolute geniuses in my book. If you’ve never read Love and Rockets… hard recommend.

• I came across the Danish Helle Skaarup Studio this week, and couldn’t stop looking at their abstract embroidered art and soft goods.

Question of the week

Who is it that inspires you with their creative work? I’m talking writers, musicians, artists, composers, poets, filmmakers, anyone at all. I’ll share mine in the comments too.

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