My Gurus – Jenny Crowe

 
Patti Smith

Horses was my introduction to Patti Smith via a mix tape that a great friend made for me. I played it on repeat while studying at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee.

Around that time, I was lucky enough to undertake an exchange to the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. On our first day there, still jetlagged and adjusting to everything stateside, we stumbled across a free arts festival and were ushered along with huge crowds into a seemingly vast auditorium for a spoken word event. As we found our seats, that unmistakable voice and those iconic opening lines of Horses made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I was smitten with Patti from then on. I’ve seen her in venues small and large since and she always reminds me of the power of performers to change our world.