Since retiring from a reunited Jefferson Airplane more than a decade ago, singer Grace Slick has spent much of her time in front of the canvas, not the mike, painting likenesses of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, as well as a series of Alice in Wonderland-inspired pieces known as "The Wonderland Suite."

"I started painting about six years ago," she says. "I work on acrylic because oil takes too long, and, frankly, I'm sixty-three -- I don't have time to wait around. I'm obsessive about it. It's all I do. I'll paint animals, people, anything. I only stop to do the necessities like brush my teeth and go grocery shopping. Friends will call and encourage me to leave the house, go to a movie or something."

In keeping with her rock roots, Slick will make a tour of galleries in support of her work that will go well into next year. For now, samples of her paintings are available at www.areaarts.com/events.html, which includes her audio explanations of "The Wonderland Suite."

Slick first honored her life-long fascination with Alice in Wonderland, in the Airplane classic "White Rabbit, a song she wrote on a red, gap-toothed upright piano in the small Marin County town of Larkspur. Inspired in tempo by music from Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain," "White Rabbit" became an anthem for experimentation.

"It was a real cute piano and it was missing about ten keys," she remembers. "I bought it later. I don't play instruments; I just use them to play what I hear in my head. You think about the stories your parents read you as a kid, stories like Alice in Wonderland, while they're sitting there with a glass of scotch in their hands telling you not to do drugs. Alice in Wonderland to me was always about experimentation. It should be required reading for young girls."

Today Slick will be inducted into the Rock Walk Hall of Fame in Hollywood, an honor the singer will take with a good-sized grain of salt.

"Americans don't have kings and queens, so we need these kinds of things," she says. "I understand it, but I don't take it too seriously."

Grace Slick gallery tour dates:

11/1-2: Dallas, The Gallery at Southside
11/15: Chicago, Atlas Galleries
1/17-18: Sausalito, CA, Fingerhut Gallery
1/31: Miami, Bal Harbor Gallery
2/1: Miami, FL, Bal Harbor Gallery
2/14-15: Carmel, CA, Fingerhut Gallery
2/28-3/1: New York, Art Expo
3/22: Laguna Beach, CA, Fingerhut Gallery
3/29: La Jolla, CA, Fingerhut Gallery
5/2-3: New Orleans, LA, New Orleans Jazz Festival
5/16-17: Las Vegas, NV, Grammy Art and Music Gallery

COLIN DEVENISH
(October 22, 2002)