Ode to Patti.

I spent yesterday sat around a pool near the harbour reading the best book I've read in ages: Just Kids by Patti Smith. She's my new hero.

It's the story of her multifaceted love for the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she met at the age of 20 on the streets of NYC. But we also get to see New York's beatnik art scene at that time- Warhol, Candy Darling, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix... Beautifully written, inspiring and the best ode to the vocation of the artist I've ever read. It certainly was worth trudging round all the book shops in the north to find the last copy.

Here's the opening preface:

"Much has been said about Robert, and more will be added. Young men will adopt his gait. Young girls will wear white dresses and mourn his curls. He will be condemned and adored. His excesses damned or romanticiized. In the end, truth will be found in his work, the coporeal body of the artist. It will not fall away. Man cannot judge it. For art sings of God, and ultimately belongs to him."

Thanks Patz.