Just Kids

"I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one."

After Smith's first exposure to art in the real world, she knows that all she wants to do is become an artist. Though she has no discernable talent for art at the time, she orients her life towards cultivating the gifts that she will bring her artistic acclaim as an adult.

"He was an artist and he knew it. It was not a childish notion. He merely acknowledged what was his."

While Smith feels drawn to art but can't discern her relationship to it, Mapplethorpe knows from a young age that he’s an artist. His talents then manifest in his drawing abilities and his skill with making jewelry. Mapplethorpe's absolute dedication to making a life for himself as an artist, with no second thoughts, reflects this early self-knowledge. 

"It was my private ritual and the words and voice of John Lennon that provided me with strength when I faltered."

Beginning at a young age, Smith engages in these “private rituals,” like listening to a song three times in a row on the jukebox while having a coffee and donut by herself. She imbues these rituals with meanings ranging from protection to inspiration and believes in them wholly.

"I vowed to both of them that I would make something of myself, then headed back home, stopping in Camden at the Goodwill store to buy a long gray raincoat."

Smith makes a vow to both Joan of Arc and the son she gives up for adoption that she will do something more with her life than work at a factory. Smith takes this vow seriously and consistently holds Joan of Arc in high esteem. The raincoat is an homage to the poet Charles Baudelaire, another of Smith's many literary references. 

"She was the one who gave me the last piece of encouragement, a thief's good-luck sign."

Ever superstitious, Smith finds money in a forgotten purse in a New Jersey bus depot; inside, she locates and steals enough money for a bus ticket to New York City, leaving behind the purse and a locket she finds inside the purse. Smith takes finding the money as a clear sign that she should head to the city. Smith sees these kinds of signs everywhere, and documents them. As a young and starving artist, she steals when she has to, as one of her heroes, the French writer Jean Genet, also did. 

"That wasn't much fun, but I had my mantra, 'I'm free, I'm free.'"

To keep herself from returning home, defeated, Smith encourages herself by leaning into her absolute freedom in New York City—no job, no home, no responsibilities to anyone but herself. For Smith, being free trumps pretty much every practical concern, though her hunger gnaws at her. 

“I had lived in the world of books, most of them written in the nineteenth century."

Through literature, Smith feels prepared to take on sleeping in random places and wandering the city by day; however, no amount of books she's read can prepare her for her constant hunger before she finds a job. She realizes that even her favorite writers had to find a way to eat.

"When he awoke and greeted me with his crooked smile, I knew he was my knight."

Mapplethorpe saves Smith from not only her date with a creepy bookstore customer but provides her with a safe place to stay. Their first night together cements their bond as each other's protectors, cheerleaders, and loyal companions. 

"We had our work and one another."

In their first apartment together, Smith and Mapplethorpe have so little money they can barely afford to eat, let alone go out or spend money on art supplies. Both resourceful and dedicated to art as much as to each other, they use what they have to create a space of their own, in which they can dedicate themselves to working on their art side-by-side.

"It was the shepherd's star and the star of love. Robert called it our blue star."

Blue Star becomes Mapplethorpe and Smith's interchangeable nickname for each other—a reference to seeing Venus in the sky above them on a walk early on in their relationship. 

"The goodwill that surrounded us was proof that the Fates were conspiring to help their enthusiastic children."

When they arrive at the Chelsea Hotel, Smith feels lucky to have gotten a room among a group of so many artists. She also expresses her superstitious belief in fate and reinforces she and Mapplethorpe's youth and reliance on the aid of others. 

"But more likely because it was a magic period, and Harry believed in magic."

For Smith and Mapplethorpe, the period during which they live at the Chelsea represents the foundation for both of their careers. They continuously meet intriguing people, like Salvador Dali and Allen Ginsburg, who usher the young artists into a world of wonder that, to Smith, seems magical. 

"Mapplethorpe approached dressing like living art."

Both Mapplethorpe and Smith pay close attention to the outfits they wear, hoping to project certain auras, or reference their favorite figures, eras, or places. They both also see everything they do as part of their art, including the outfits they select and the impact those outfits have on those around them. 

"Fill the wound we had opened to let other experiences in."

After Mapplethorpe sleeps with a man for pleasure rather than money, he begins to give Smith more gifts than usual. Though Smith loves adding these gifts to her growing collection of sacred objects, she feels that the gifts are Mapplethorpe's attempt to rectify things between them as they begin to grow apart.

"It seemed as if the whole of the world was slowly being stripped of its innocence. Or maybe I was seeing a little too clearly."

In the first two years that Smith lives in New York, the United States escalates its involvement in the Vietnam War, racial tensions rise, and numerous public figures, including Martin Luther King Jr., Kennedy, and various young rock stars suffer tragic deaths. Though Smith and Mapplethorpe live in a relatively insular artist community, the world around them seems mired in violence and turmoil that occasionally spills over into their lives. 

"I was no actress; I drew no line between life and art. I was the same on- as offstage."

Through acting, Smith discovers how much she likes performing and being onstage, though she learns that she's not suited to acting. Smith has, however, no stage fright, so she continues pursuing performance as an art form.

"The artist and the hustler was also the good son and altar boy."

Mapplethorpe has a complicated self, one that has roots in a conservative Catholic home but interests in the extremes of human life: pain, pleasure, sex, and death. Smith sees this clearly and understands that these things don't make Mapplethorpe all good or all bad; rather, they constitute a person with dimension.

"And from our new digs, Mapplethorpe and I resumed our lives as before, eating together, searching for assemblage components, taking photographs, and monitoring the progress of each other's work."

Though they move into separate apartments, Smith and Mapplethorpe find themselves able to keep up their former relationship with ease. They continue to collaborate and hold each other accountable to their respective artistic processes, as they had when they spent all of their time together and were a couple.

"Sam, as the quintessential patron, had the resources, the vision, and the desire to magnify the artist. Mapplethorpe was the artist he sought."

Though Mapplethorpe has absolute dedication to his artistic practice, the financial reality is that he can't support himself without either working or having a patron. In a replication of a longstanding practice of patronage, Sam Wagstaff, a collector and art enthusiast, provides the financial support for Mapplethorpe to devote all of his time to art and have access to the materials he needs. 

"Poetry would still be my guiding principle, but I had it in my mind to one day give Robert his wish."

Mapplethorpe has always wished Smith would sing and make songs that he could dance to. Though Smith's first few songs are avant-garde poetry/rock hybrids, her later songs lean more towards rock.

"I was full of references. He was full of light and shadow."

Smith says this of the iconic photograph Mapplethorpe took for the cover of her debut album, Horses. While Smith always thinks about how to pay tribute to or incorporate her sacred influences, Mapplethorpe cares more about the aesthetics of the photograph—a relationship that remains consistent throughout each artist's respective career.

"'My mother still thinks we're married.'"

When Mapplethorpe first brings Smith to meet his conservative, Catholic parents, he lies to them, saying that he and Smith are married, so his parents won't be upset about them living together. They would be even less receptive to Mapplethorpe's homosexuality, or the idea of divorce, so Mapplethorpe hasn't told them the truth about himself and Smith.

"'I don't know how he does it, but all his photographs of you look like him.'"

Smith's husband has this thought while looking at photographs of Smith by Mapplethorpe. It's as though their closeness and identification with each other has fused them into a single being through their collaborative work.