Monday, June 1, 2015
Patti Smith
The Post Beat poet Patti Smith is the Poet Laureate of Punk Rock - a direct descendant of Ginsberg, Sappho, and Jesus.
Here she gives insight and inspiration to our generation of aspiring artists:
Patti Smith claims that the internet is giving power to the people and is opening up new opportunities for anyone to become an artist. Anyone can make something and put their work up, social revolutions and change are catalyzed by technology. However, technology also makes it difficult for artists to make any sort of compensating profit for their work. Because everything can be accessed freely, artists are forced to display their work freely; whose going to pay to listen to a new band or pay to check out someone's new poetry? I love the idea of spreading art freely, but I would also love to make a living, enough to pay for a small place to live and some food. The internet may make it MORE difficult for an artist to get by through the efforts of their art. What do you people think? [sic]
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*Snaps.* On so many levels, I totally agree with you. In the second video when Patti Smith talks about Burroughs' advice, that your "name will be its own currency," I'm not sure that he anticipated the millions of pervasive idiots whose names occupy the same internet matrix as everyone else's. I suppose success has always been about networking in one way or another; would we be reading Ginsberg's "Howl" if Ferlinghetti hadn't published it? I hope so, but maybe not.
ReplyDeleteWhen I tell people I'm majoring in Biology and Literature, their initial assumption is usually something akin to "Oh, how interesting. So you want to be a scientist and do some writing on the side?" No. Fuck off. I want to be a writer and maybe look at orca whales or the anatomy of a cow's eye or something on the side. So I can write about it. And about how annoying that question is to me.
I think the idea of "Being happy, healthy, and pursuing what you want" carries so much more weight than Smith vocalizes. Doing what makes you happy is possible, but also daunting in an age where a writer's self-discovery through technology and social media is often masked by Buzzfeed articles titled "Here's a Bunch of Hot Babes Wearing Pink" (how are THEY possibly being paid?).
But on the flip side, here I am on trey.blogspot.com, connecting with you and I don't even know you. Technology has its downfalls, but that in itself is pretty fucking cool.
One of my favorite Youtube channels is called "The Art Assignment" (https://www.youtube.com/user/theartassignment). The purpose of this channel is to highlight an artistic style or idea and then get the viewers of the channel to attempt the artist's assignment. For instance, one of the episodes illustrated the way an artist uses the titles of books in a person's library to make a poem (the piece is called "Sorted Books")
ReplyDeleteThe point I'm trying to make here is that the medium of Youtube not only introduces me to new artistic styles and artists I've never heard of, it allows me (someone with very little artistic talent) to follow in the artists footsteps.
That Youtube channel sounds pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteTechnology allows artists to gain exposure they probably wouldn't receive otherwise. Of course compensation is dicey, but, in the end, wasn't art made to be shared? Isn't it better to have it out in the world rather than sitting on it and waiting for a book deal or a label signing?
Patti Smith's little pep-talk is an important one and it's pretty cool she was able to connect with Burroughs and talk about networking and the currency of a name. North Beach was the reason "Howl" was published, as Lucy pointed out. Technology is the digital version of North Beach and YouTube is the Coexistence Bagel Shop.
I love Patti Smith. She's iconic in the punk scene, but also as a poet. I kind of agree that living off of your art has become difficult due to the internet. In some ways, it is wonderful because theoretically a lot more people will be able to see it, which is kind of the point of art, that it's seen. However, if an artist's living is on their art, then it must become difficult if people no longer become interested in buying it. As someone who needed to self-publish a book this quarter, I only had so many copies made and decided not to sell them due to the sole fact that I knew it would cost me more than I would realistically make out of profit. I would love to release more copies of it, and I'm sure I have a few friends or family members that would buy them, but it would never even match the personal cost it took to even have my book put together. I have some friends and family that just assumed I would give them copies! It makes me think that the internet almost convinces people that art will just be free or easily accessed for everyone.
ReplyDeletePatti Smith is an inspirational artist. If you haven't read it yet, I would highly recommend her book "Just Kids," chronicling her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and their artistic journey through youth together
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