SAN FRANCISCO — Psychedelic rocker Grace Slick, who drank and drugged her way to 1960s icon status as lead singer for 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 between $1,100 and $8,700. Her paintings include portraits of musicians she knew years ago: Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, 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.
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.
1: How do you want people to see you now?
Slick: Unstoppable lunatic. It's pretty much what I see in the mirror.
2: 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.
3: Are you romantically involved with anyone at the moment?
Slick: No.
4: What are you most proud of?
Slick: My persistence. I don't usually give up.
5: When has persistence been the most useful for you?
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.