Mischief Makers

Patti Smith, 2020

acrylic on panel  
34 x 22 in

Joan calls Patti Smith “one of the most eccentric people I know.”

“She’s also wise and sweet and funny and humble,” she says. “And a friend.”

That friendship was cemented in 2015 when Smith presented Joan with Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award, marking the 50th anniversary of Joan’s performance at the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march in Alabama.

In her introduction, Smith said: “If the 16th century had Joan of Arc, we have Joan Baez.” She described Baez’s legacy as one of “solitary fierceness” that has been “a vehicle for social protest, a comfort and a ray of hope for people.”

Smith’s activism is primarily centered around the environment. A big supporter of Greta Thunberg, another of Joan’s Mischief Makers. Smith spoke of Joan in a 2018 LA Times interview.

“I did a concert in Cologne and Joan Baez joined me. We sang “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” together, and we were both in tears singing because a lot of these concerns are within the lyrics of that song. And Joan Baez is fearless. To hear her really that worried about our future environmentally — we were confiding in each other, really, that we both are concerned with our grandchildren.”