Unstoppable Grace Slick's art shows persistence pays
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By KIM CURTIS, Associated Press writer
Friday, March 16, 2001
SAN FRANCISCO Psychedelic rocker Grace Slick, who drank and drugged her
way to 1960s icon status as lead singer for the Jefferson Airplane, has
turned to painting as her creative outlet.
Last year, she returned to the city that spawned a movement and her
stardom for a gallery showing of her work, priced from $1,100 to $8,700.
Her paintings include portraits of musicians she knew years ago: Jerry
Garcia, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.
The gallery showed Slick's work for about six weeks and sold about $50,000
worth of her art, said Artrock gallery owner Phil Cushway. Her paintings of
Garcia and white rabbits were among the most popular pieces. (Slick wrote
the '60s hit "White Rabbit.")
"People just go crazy over Grace," Cushway said. "It was just an amazing
response."
Her studio is the dining room of her Malibu, Calif., home.
"It's the usual nutty-looking slob artist arrangement," she said. She
works about a week on each painting, cranking out about 100 a year.
Slick, 61, has made it through two failed marriages and from Jefferson
Airplane to Starship to her own short-lived solo career. She made a brief
excursion into pop with Starship in the 1980s, then quit the music business
a decade ago.
Q: How do you want people to see you now?
Slick: Unstoppable lunatic. It's pretty much what I see in the mirror.
Q: Why lunatic?
Slick: The reason I put "lunatic" there is because if you base my life
against most people's lives, obviously, there's a screw loose there
somewhere, but I wouldn't have it any other way. When you get old you
don't regret what you did; you regret what you didn't do.
Q: What are you most proud of?
Slick: My persistence. I don't usually give up.
Q: When has persistence been the most useful?
Slick: With everything. It comes in with art, it comes in with
relationships, it comes in with physical disabilities. You just don't stop.
Unstoppable lunatic.
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