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..".