Analysis Of Just Kids By Patti Smith

In the book, Just Kids, Patti Smith elaborates on the successes and struggles that she and Robert Maplethorpe experienced throughout their amateur life in New York City. These two icons lived in the city during the 60s, 70s, and parts of the 80s — an era of counter-culture where rebellious artists took up various drugs and acted out against the government. Ranging from music, art, photography, and filmmaking, they were molded into the individuals they turned out to be in the end. The duo lived in many houses, apartments, squatters, but one “home” or “shelter” made a lasting impact on them artistically — the Chelsea Hotel. Evidently, Smith and Maplethorpe shared an intense and never-ending ambition that helped them connect and work toward
During its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, famous artists Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and Andy Warhol all took pit stops in this grand hotel. Hotel Chelsea was the perfect melting pot of artists, musicians, and poets that allowed Patti and Robert to catapult their creative insights. If only one person could be chosen that single-handedly altered both Smith and Maplethorpe, it would without a doubt be Sandy Daley. To begin, Sandy Daley had the biggest impact on Maplethorpe by providing him with his first camera — a polaroid. With this polaroid, Robert learned how to take photographs and document his surroundings in creative ways that exposed the truth of the object he was photographing. Patti writes, “a tremendous stroke of luck to land up there... to dwell in this eccentric and damned hotel provided a sense of security as well as a stellar education,” with education being the artistic tools and insights given from other artists. Sandy Haley was an interesting character and also imprinted an impression onto Patti Smith, as she states “Sandy sometimes seemed a dark captive in her white room. She often wore a long black dress and I liked to walk behind her” (101). The white room represented the ideal self and the dark attire would exemplify the weakness that was holding back the potential. Sandy Daley allowed both Smith and Maplethorpe to blossom because she
Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Bobby Neuwirth, and William Burroughs all played a crucial role in transforming Smith into a rockstar. Gregory Corso was a poet who was the youngest of the beat generation and gave lists of dictionaries, books, and poems to Patti (Smith 138). Smith gained creative insight from Corso, “Gregory would heckle them, punctuating the mundane…I made a mental note to make certain I was never boring if I read my poems one day” (Smith 138). Although the pointers were not grandiose, the small little details of Patti’s life allowed Smith to prosper at the Chelsea Hotel. Similarly in the Chelsea Hotel, the slightest change to appearance would have turned anyone’s head and get you noticed. Patti did just that. After one night, Patti cut her hairstyle to resemble that of Keith Richards and Jackie Curtis asked Smith be in her play Femme Fatale. Artists throughout the Chelsea Hotel noticed Patti’s hairstyle and associated her androgynous look. Even Allen Ginsberg mistook Patti for a “pretty boy” at an automat one afternoon (Smith 123). Bobby Neuwirth was one of the major contributors of transforming Patti Smith into a rockstar. Neuwirth was a folk singer and songwriter and was the leading confidant of most artist’s and musician’s during the 1970s and 1980s. One time Patti was sitting in the lobby waiting for Robert, when Bobby Neuwirth caught her eye. They took a shot at