In the beginning of Robert Mapplethorpe’s artistic career, he struggled in finding who he really was as a person, as a man, and as an artist. When Robert first met Patti Smith, he did a lot of beading and jewelry making which is typically considered a female profession, regardless of the fact that he was a straight man at the time. Patti always said how there was no doubt that Robert was meant to be an artist, he just had a little trouble finding out what kind of artist he was meant to be. After coming to the realization that he was either gay or bisexual (the book doesn’t really specify), Robert began to become more interested in finding out who he was rather than what his artwork was meant to be. While Patti was more focused on keeping a job, a place to live, and food to eat, Robert spent his days experimenting with either art or his sexuality. Art was a secondary way of life to Patti, and she sacrificed putting it first because she knew that Robert was the better artist out of the two of them. Robert would often start pieces of art without finishing them, but I think that he did that not because he was unhappy with the result, but because he had figured out something more suiting to his artistic style without truly realizing it. For example, after Pig Man died, Robert had created the piece of artwork that Patti was completely stunned by (I believe it was a canvas covered in cut out images from men’s magazines) because she knew that he had put together a piece of art that both of them had truly taken pride in. From that point, Robert had discovered his sense of identity through art and most of his photographs have a specific “signature” that could be considered his style, like I had stated in class on Friday. Although Robert started out mainly involved in art, Patti always knew that he should have pursued a career in photography. As photography began to become increasingly appreciated, Robert embraced his talent and further explored gender and identity through his photographic collections of human figures and self portraits.