Rock Icon Grace Slick Put Down the Microphone and Picked Up a Paint Brush

Known for her strong voice, dark hair and radical persona, Grace Slick was a strong presence in the 60s and 70s era of hippies, peace rallies, and free love. As the female lead singer of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, she brought us such rock classics as "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love". Grace Slick's extreme behavior in her personal and professional life is well chronicled. Her 1998 biography "Somebody to Love?: A Rock-and-Roll Memoir" starts with a personal account of an incident in which she lifts her skirt on stage to display herself without panties to the audience, in response to a heckler. She describes this event as "pleasant" compared to another incident in which she drunkenly jumps into the first row at a concert and picks a man's nose. She goes on to say "I stuck my fingers in this guy's nostrils just because I thought they'd probably fit."

Today, Grace Slick sports pure white hair, and although she no longer expresses herself through music, she continues to pursue creative efforts as an artist. She stopped performing in 1989 shortly after joining Jefferson Airplane for a reunion tour. That's when she began painting. She now tours the country to attend art gallery displays of her artwork. I met her recently at one of these events hosted by Gallery 319 in Santa Monica. Since I was just a bit too young to be aware of her antics in the 60s and 70s, it was difficult for me to picture this mature white-haired woman behaving that way. I guess time does bring about changes in a person. However, based on some recent interviews with her, she has not turned into some soft-spoken wallflower. She recently appeared at a ceremony to dedicate the new Virgin America Airline's first aircraft, which they are calling "Jefferson Airplane", joined by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Grace is quoted in a MercuryNews.com article as saying "It's like Grateful Dead would have been a bad name for an airplane..".

In the late 1950s, after she left Finch College in New York, Grace Slick briefly studied art at the University of Miami. Apparently her desire to be an artist remained with her throughout her musical career. And memories of her career in music have apparently remained with her and influenced her during her career as an artist. Much of her artwork seems to make reference to her time as a singer and songwriter. As with her song "White Rabbit", Alice in Wonderland references are dominant in her artwork. Images of Alice and the White Rabbit appear often in her paintings. According to her bio at the Jefferson Airplane website "Grace has always said that White Rabbit was intended as a slap toward parents who read their children stories such as Alice in Wonderland (in which Alice uses several drug-like substances in order to change herself) and then wondered why their children grew up to do drugs."

Grace Slick's artwork also includes images of the Dormouse, the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen, and Humpty Dumpty. However, her work is not constrained to these children's storybook images. Her paintings also include other musical and rock icons such as Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Pete Townshend, Jim Morrison, and my personal favorite, Sting. When I spoke with her, I mentioned that I liked her Sting piece. She made a comment to the effect that Sting is the only older rocker that she doesn't mind seeing perform and that she thinks that some of these other older rockers should hang it up. Could she be referring to the Stones perhaps?

You will find Grace Slick's artwork for sale at fine art galleries throughout the country. You can find a list of galleries selling her work as well as the work of other celebrity artists at PopLifeArt.com.