Artist Grace Slick reveals the truth about Stevie Ray Vaughan,
Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison and that ubiquitous dormouse
by Mike Jasper

"One thing I can guarantee you," I said in a phone interview with
Grace Slick. "I'm not going to start the article by writing, 'Grace
Slick traded her microphone for a set of paint brushes.' I've already
read that line in three different articles written about you."
Yeah. That's pretty funny. Let me try another approach.

Grace Slick -- former lead singer of the Jefferson Airplane and
Jefferson Starship -- will appear at ART on Fifth Fine Art Gallery this
weekend to display her artwork. Long-time fans need not worry: the
legendary rock singer is warm, genuine, still gutsy, surprisingly funny and wilder than any other 65-year-old you know. I'm not usually a fan of fawning, advocate-style journalism, but I'm entitled the occasional exception. Here it goes.

Come see Grace Slick this weekend at ART on Fifth gallery. You will not be disappointed in her or her art.

There you have it. Basically, the article's done. No need to read any further, unless you're the kind of person who likes to write hate mail to newspapers or you're some kind of masochist who enjoys being tortured by self-indulgent prose from a drunken (on power!) writer lucky enough to discover one editor in Austin who doesn't think Mike Jasper is a complete lunatic.

Or read on if you're a diehard Grace Slick fan. After all, you're the ones I'm trying to reach. But I'm getting ahead of myself. When my editor told me he could line up an interview with Grace Slick, I was both stunned and star struck. The pinup girl of my youth, my modern Mae West, in a one-on-one interview? I couldn't believe my luck.

Unfortunately, there was a caveat. Both my editor and Joe Siegel, the owner of ART on Fifth gallery, warned me that while I would be granted a phone interview with Grace Slick, some topics were strictly off limits.

"There are some ground rules," one of those guys told me. "She doesn't want to talk about music and she doesn't want to talk about the '60s."
"Fine," I said. "We'll just keep it about art."
To that end, I visited the gallery last Friday to have a look at her artwork so I would be somewhat prepared for the phone interview Monday. But I kept wondering: If I could ask her any question, what would it be?
I could only think of one, and I couldn't get it out of my mind all weekend long. "Ms. Slick, did you ever make it with Jim Morrison?" I know. It's more Joan Rivers than Kurt Loder, but aren't you curious too?

I decided to table that idea and focus on the art. Truth is, I don't know much about art. I don't even know what I like half the time. But for all the warnings about music and the '60s being taboo, a lot of her artwork deals with those very same themes. White rabbits appear often, as do Cheshire cats, mad hatters, and a dormouse or two -- the entire Wonderland suite.
Rock stars are also a recurring theme, and the luminaries included
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Mick Jagger, Jerry Garcia and, yes, even
Jim Morrison. Prominently. A brochure showed her Pretty Boy drawing of Morrison, along with the following quote:
"And he was -- is -- a beauty. I think his extraordinary appearance
got in his way -- a dark path of discovery. I drew the perfect boy,
something he never was."

Man, I thought. I definitely have to ask about her and Morrison. I'll just make sure I ask it last, in case she hangs up on me. While at the allery, I snapped some photos of her paintings so I could refer to them during the interview. I guess I should take a little time to explain her media. Most of her original painting is done in acrylic. After the painting is completed, limited edition copies of
the originals are made using a high-quality method called giclee. (You and I would call these prints.)

She also works in a medium called scratchboard, which starts out black, just the opposite of a canvas, which starts out whitish. Scratchboard pieces are created by cutting the board to reveal the white underneath. She calls it a meditative process, as she meticulously scratches the creation using a knife or even a safety pin. I would call the process tedious beyond belief, as it's very detailed work, but then I have trouble drawing anything beyond a pint.

My gut reaction to her work? I really liked the Janis Joplin dressed in black with the flag behind her. And I loved the pencil drawing of Keith Richards. If Richards ever saw it, I think he'd buy it in a second. The drawing of Frank Zappa was classic, as was Grace Slick's
self-portrait in a Girl Scout uniform.
But what am I, an art critic? Hell, the real ones suck, but a pretend critic sucks even harder. What you really want to hear is what she said in the phone interview.

SO TALK TO HER, ALREADY

Frankly, I was dreading the call. Grace Slick was a huge star during the '60s, back when I was 15 years old. Nobody's ever as big as the heroes you had back in high school. What if she's rude? What if she hates me? Holy hell, what if she's Republican? Well, she's not Republican, and she's not the drunken wild child who once plotted to dose President Nixon with LSD, either. "I'm pretty much the same person I always was, just not as drunk." She was also open to any question I might ask. Yes, that's right. Any question.

"I've had my coffee, so I'll talk about anything," she said the morning of the interview. "Once I've had my date with Juan Valdez, I'll talk about the '60s, music, or even what kind of toothpaste I use." Of course, some things had changed. For one, she traded her microphone for a paint brush (damn, I've got to stop writing that). She has gotten older (haven't we all?). She quit drinking, although she is hesitant to say that's for good, and she moved from Marin County in NoCal to Malibu in SoCal.

Funny story about that. In 1993, her Marin County house burned to the ground when some county workers got careless with a welding torch while putting up a street sign. The street sign read, "Danger. Fire area." Seems they were right. When the insurance money came in, she decided to move down south to be closer to her daughter, China. About a year later, she started drawing animals in oil pencil as a hobby. But around the time she was writing her autobiography, Somebody to Love? A Rock-and-Roll Memoir, her agent suggested she paint rock stars along with the animals and consider selling them. She warmed up to the idea, and around 1997 she went into creating art full time. "I found I actually enjoyed painting rock stars, since many of them were friends, and these people have very powerful and complex personalities," she said. "I pretty much paint 24/7, and I'm pretty much obsessive about anything I do. Fortunately, it's painting now and not drinking or yelling at the cops."

Singing rock and roll is also off her list these days. While she did do a couple of engagements a few years back with Jefferson Starship, she doesn't see herself climbing on a rock and roll stage at age 65. Then again, she didn't say it was out of the question either. "I only do one thing at a time, so I didn't draw when I was doing rock and roll," she said. "One child, one house, one career, one man. I could never do orgies. I had no moral objection, it was just too confusing. Couldn't tell where one leg started and the other ended."

Grace Slick is a focused person, and these days she's focused on her art. Since she garners $1,200 for prints and as much as $20,000 for original paintings or scratchboards, she doesn't need to rely on rock and roll for a living anymore, although royalties from songs she's written such as "White Rabbit" keep trickling in. Not to mention, art is a lot less physically taxing than a rock and roll tour, and something she can do on her own.
"It's not like I'm a folk singer, you know. I don't drag a guitar around and sing Greensleeves" or anything. I'm a rock singer, so I can't just show up alone."

Although she did take art classes at the University of Miami one year in her pre-Jefferson Airplane days, she's had no real formal training. She says the art comes from the same spiritual place that fueled her as a singer and songwriter."My art feels like it comes through me, not by me. Kind of a god thing. That might turn people off, but so what."
Janis Joplin continues to be one of her favorite subjects. Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company used to appear together at a lot of shows, so the two saw quite a bit of each other back in the day.
"I'm going to keep doing Janis until I make one that I like," she said. "I want to capture the person I saw when I walked into the dressing room. This incredible, vibrant, joyful person with the wonderful cackling laugh. This explosive being."

For the Austin show, she created a painting of blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, which will be revealed Friday night."What a great guitar player he was. I first heard him on David
Bowie's song ('Let's Dance'). He didn't go rock god, he played tastefully and performed exactly what was needed for the song. That impressed me."
As the interview winded down and I exhausted all my art questions, I decided to let go with my insolent, fanzine question. After all, she told me she would talk about anything.

"So... did you make it with Jim Morrison?"

"Yeah," she said. "But only once. He never called me back. Dammit."
Now that's the Grace Slick I know and love. Or... think I know. And love.
Grateful for her candor, I asked her if there was anything she wanted included in the article.

"The next painting I'm doing is a man from the chest up with an exploding head. It's going to be tough for some people to look at, because I'm going to be realistic," she said. "It'll be gory and funny at the same time. Some people will think it's ridiculous, some people
will think it's disgusting."
Interesting. I think I have the perfect title for it. The Journalist.