“An Alchemical Connection” – How Patti Smith Met Robert Mapplethorpe
In the Service95 Book Club’s September Read, Just Kids, Patti Smith explores her beautiful and complex relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. In this excerpt, from the book Robert Mapplethorpe: The Archive, Smith describes the first weeks and months of their now-iconic partnership. Click here to read the full essay at Service95.com
When we are young we are not always adept at reading the signals of one another. A girl meets a boy and feels an alchemical connection, yet cannot guess what he is thinking. Secret wishes, shyness, or a lack of self-confidence may mask a burgeoning hope. Perhaps they will find one another, but if they don’t, she may go through life wondering – does he think of me as I think of him?
On the afternoon of July 3, 1967, I stood over a sleeping boy who awoke, then smiled at me. I have told this story many times. It is how I met Robert Mapplethorpe. I had left home with a little plaid suitcase and had nowhere to stay. I met him quite by accident, seeking shelter in the former apartment of some mutual friends; he guided me on foot to their new place. They were gone for the holidays, so I slept on their stoop on an empty Brooklyn Street. When I awoke it was Independence Day and I still had nowhere to go. However, that morning I was not thinking of my friends. I was thinking about Robert, though at the time I didn’t even know his name. On the fourth of July I took the subway back and roamed around New York City, wondering if our paths would cross again.
Providence was kind and we did accidentally meet. We walked the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, talking for hours. Robert was funny, gentle and a sympathetic listener. That night we went back to Brooklyn to the same flat where I had found him sleeping. Robert slid two large black portfolios from beneath his bed. We sat on the floor and he showed me his work, delicate drawings, many resulting from his visionary experiences while on LSD. One by one he laid them before me – spidery images, intertwining words, a budding twig transforming as a bird, an etching of a flower’s blooming face, disembodied insects and mandalas composed of a mystical calligraphy. His work had its roots and references, echoing artists from Redon to Henri Michaux to Pousette-Dart, yet wholly unique. As dawn approached we fell asleep together, the floor covered with his drawings.
In the weeks to come we were inseparable. Robert searched for living quarters for us near the Pratt Institute of Art where he attended classes. We created an environment that reflected our common aesthetic, using furniture and found objects left on the Brooklyn streets on trash night. Having little money we lived simply, but happily. We both drew, working side by side on the floor, using the same box of color pencils, the same brass sharpeners. I loved to watch Robert develop a drawing: he was a beautiful draftsman and easily applied this skill to form the complex yet intuitive organic shapes that formed his visual vocabulary.
That winter we found employment in a major toy emporium in the city. Robert was a window trimmer and I worked at the cash register, ringing up toys. On a coffee break I found a miniature lamb from an abandoned nativity crèche in a trash bin. The holidays were approaching and Robert suggested we make a habitat for the lamb. He made a shadow box from wood and I painted it white. I began a drawing with words as a backdrop but fell asleep. Robert stayed awake most of the night finishing it and presented it to me in the morning. I placed the lamb in his new home and we set it on the table, our sole Christmas tableau. I called it our lamb box and it somehow reflected the intricate simplicity of our life together…
© Patti Smith; Robert Mapplethorpe: The Archive by Frances Terpak and Michelle Brunnick, with essays by Patti Smith and Jonathan Weinberg
