Patti Smith leaves behind her family and friends to head to New York City in the hopes of locating comfort in the company of other struggling artists.
She gives up her child for adoption in the wish that it will have a more stable life than she could offer.
Smith abandons her safety, living day to day on the streets and in friends’ apartments in order to feel the freedom her art requires.
She and Mapplethorpe are forced to choose between food and new art supplies due to the confines of their budget.
Mapplethorpe sacrifices his fervent love for Patti so that he may explore his newly discovered sexual orientation.
Both find they often must relinquish their devotion to art for stressful, monotonous jobs to make ends meet.
However, these sacrifices prove worth the pain for the final product. Both artists, in all of their loss and suffering, manage to create such raw, wondrous pieces. They became not only a part of their generation but creators of it. As Smith mentions in the interview, she did not know at the time that what she was doing was so revolutionary. Nonetheless, both endured monumental hardship but forged ahead, also forging the artistic and political framework of a new generation.
-Jacqui Larsen
