The Indissoluble Filament Connecting Us All: Patti Smith on What It Means to Be an Artist

Every visionary, every person of greatness and originality, is a resounding yes to life — to the truth of their own experience, to the demanding restlessness of the creative spirit, to the beauty and brutality and sheer bewilderment of being alive — a yes made of unfaltering nos: no to the way things are commonly done, no to the standard models of what is possible and permissible for a person, no to the banality of approval, no to every Faustian bargain of so-called success offering prestige at the price of authenticity. One night after a long day shift as a… read article