Barbara’s studio

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

I craved honesty, yet found dishonesty in myself.  Why commit to art?  For self-realization, or for itself?  It seemed indulgent to add to the glut unless one offered illumination.

Often I’d sit and try to draw, but all the manic activity in the streets, coupled with the Vietnam War, made my efforts seem meaningless.  I could not identify with political movements.  In trying to join them I felt overwhelmed by yet another form of bureaucracy.  I wondered if anything I did mattered.

Robert [Mapplethorpe] had little patience with these introspective bouts of mine.  He never seemed to question his artistic drives, and by his example, I understood that what matters is the work:  the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of color and graphite scrawled upon the sheet that magnifies His motion.  To achieve within the work a perfect balance of faith and execution.  From this state of mind comes a light, life-charged.

Patti Smith in Just Kids

Comments are welcome!