Q&A: Mickey Hart

At the apotheosis of his career, Mickey Hart is all about the art—read: his music for the Grateful Dead and his artwork. Both collide in Las Vegas as Hart and Dead & Company take up residence inside Sphere for a series of shows. This week, catch them Aug. 1-3, as well as Hart’s art exhibition, Art at the Edge of Magic, inside the Dead Forever Experience at The Venetian. Hart spoke with Las Vegas Magazine in an exclusive interview to talk about his two creative outlets—and what’d he’d say if he ran into a couple of wizards.

I’ve looked up the definitions about “vibrational expressionism” but tell me in your own words what it means?

I live in the vibratory world as you would’ve already guessed, of sound. Life is vibration. I use vibration in my work. I vibrate things into being, into existence. Mine is a multicolored world. My process is (I put the paint colors) on a subwoofer and that vibrates the painting itself, and that allows these images to emerge, be born. I guess somebody called that vibrational expressionism (laughs), and I thought, “Wow, yeah, OK.”

So you don’t use a paint brush at all?

Hardly at all, very rarely. I find a paintbrush limiting.

Art and music are both forms of self-expression. Does each feed your soul individually?

My thing is flow. And so is music. I’m an artist and artists create, whether it’s on canvas, plexiglass or onstage at a Dead & Company show. The need to create is great in me. That’s where these images come from—they’re really music to me, it’s all music. It’s all music, it’s just in the visual domain.

Will fans be able to see your artwork during the Dead & Company concerts at Sphere? And how does it feel to have your artwork displayed on such a large canvas?

My art is on the exosphere of the Sphere, the skin of the Sphere, and then my art is inside the experience at The Venetian. It’s a humbling experience, to be honest. I only paint for myself. It was just a hobby and a lot of people ended up liking it, and they wanted to purchase it. One thing led to another. I drum, I play drums in a band. I’m a working musician. But (the art) the painting is another expression. I’m a creation junkie. I must create or I won’t have a good day. But yeah, I’m flattered and humbled.

An evil wizard appears and says, “You can only choose one to do for the rest of your life, music or artwork. Choose one!” What do you say?

Drum, of course; I was born to drum. I just paint because I paint. But I was born to drum.

A good wizard appears and says, “I’ll grant you three wishes!” What do you say?

Well, a wizard has appeared to me from time to time, and I ask that wizard, I said, “Oh, great wizard! What shall I ask of you today?” And the wizard says, “Ask me three wishes,
anything you want my son, and I grant them!” I would like to live longer, maybe another 100 years. Then make me healthy and happy and productive and engaged in life, have a great family, like I have right 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 rolled into the same thing—health, long life, great family, happiness. And then the wizard says, “Oh, alright, I’ll think about it.”

Sphere. 255 Sands Ave. deadandcompany.com

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