* Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith (with Neckbrace), 1977
—
BBC posted an excerpt of their interview with
Patti Smith
online today.
Check it out here.
In the interview Smith specifically talks about
her rediscovery of polaroid photography.
She stumbled upon an old Land 100 polaroid camera
after the death of her brother, her husband, Robert Mapplethorpe and her pianist.
She says the immediacy of being able to create something on the spot
provided some relief
from the inertia she was feeling due to her inability create in her other artforms,
i.e. music, drawing and writing.
The satisfaction of having made something
which she could immediately regard
seemed particularly attractive during the period of exhaustion she was experiencing.
Loss is a profound state to create from.
What struck me most about the interview was what Smith calls
“the results of your labors.”
The vulnerabilities of attaching creative production
to both breadwinning and
making one’s way through life.
Creation of any kind
is intrinsically dependent on the health of the human as a total organism.
Different mediums present themselves
as viable arenas depending on mood and mental capacity.
Smith’s polaroids are now on exhibit here through February 19th
at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford Connecticut.
The show, her first museum exhibition of Smith’s polaroid work, is appropriately titled Camera Solo.
Here is a sample:
