Mickey Hart – Las Vegas Magazine

At the height of his career, Mickey Hart is all about the art — that is, his music for the Grateful Dead and his artwork. The two collide in Las Vegas as Hart and Dead & Company take to the Sphere for a series of shows. This week, you can see them, August 1-3, as well as Hart’s art exhibition. Art on the edge of magicat the Dead Forever Experience at the Venetian. Hart spoke with Las Vegas Magazine in an exclusive interview about his two creative forms of expression – and what he would say if he met some magicians.

I looked up the definitions of “vibrational expressionism,” but tell me in your own words what that means?

I live, as you might have guessed, in a vibrating world of sound. Life is vibration. I use vibration in my work. I bring things into being, into existence, through vibration. My world is multi-coloured. My process is that I put the colours on a subwoofer and that makes the painting itself vibrate and that makes these paintings come into being, be born. I think someone called it vibration expressionism (laughs) and I thought, “Wow, yeah, OK.”

So you don’t use a brush at all?

Hardly, very rarely. I find a brush limiting.

Art and music are both forms of self-expression. Does either of them nourish your soul?

My thing is flow. And music too. I’m an artist and artists create something, whether it’s on canvas, plexiglass or on stage at a Dead & Company show. I have a great need to create something. That’s where these images come from – for me they really are music, it’s all music. It’s all music, just in the visual realm.

Can fans see your artwork during Dead & Company concerts at the Sphere? And how does it feel to see your artwork on such a big screen?

My art is on the exosphere of the sphere, on the outer skin of the sphere, and my art is inside the experience at the Venetian. Honestly, it’s a humbling experience. I’m just painting for myself. It was just a hobby and a lot of people ended up liking it and wanting to buy it. One thing led to another. I’m a drummer, I play drums in a band. I’m a professional musician. But (the art of) painting is another expression. I’m a creation junkie. I have to create or I’m not going to have a good day. But yeah, I’m flattered and humbled.

An evil wizard appears and says: “You can only do one thing for the rest of your life: music or art. Choose one of them!” What do you say?

Drumming, of course. I was born to drum. I only paint because I paint. But I was born to drum.

A good magician appears and says: “I will grant you three wishes!” What do you say?

Well, from time to time a magician appeared to me, and I asked this magician: “Oh, great magician! What shall I ask you today?” And the magician said: “Give me three wishes,
anything you want, my son, and I’ll grant it to you!” I want to live longer, maybe another 100 years. Then make me healthy and happy and productive and experience life, have a great family like I have now, but just give me another 100 years of it. I wouldn’t ask for more money or anything else. I don’t have number two or three because they’re all wrapped up in the same thing – health, long life, great family, happiness. And then the magician says, “Oh, OK, I’ll think about it.”

Bullet. 255 Sands Ave. deadandcompany.com

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