Venice Goodbyes
Artist Bob Graham 1938 - 2008
Sunday, December 28_12:06 p.m._Venice--Bob Graham fought his own battles. He was a Venice Patriot.
The last time I saw him, he was at one of those neighborhood meetings when an inordinate amount of time is spent by people given their first bite of power listening to the sound of their own voices.
Someone else of his stature, wealth and social status would have simply sent in the lawyers and assistants.
Not Bob. He advocated for himself.
He figuratively rolled up those elegant white sleeves, was unfailing gracious, and no matter how strongly he felt—and he felt tremendously strong about that last item I saw him attend a meeting on—didn’t demand special favors in terms of when he would be recognized by the meeting’s chair. He treated everyone around him with such dignity.
He moved through our community, your community, his community as one of, not as one over.
During such squalid occasions, through his demeanor alone, he had more impact than any of Venice’s absurd politicians.
Thus, I saw him sit through a tedious gang-intervention meeting in which others vied for credit and celebration of their attainments in the field without feeling compelled to utter so much as a word. He was an artist. So he simply did. He hired someone who’d gotten out of the hood, not as a matter of charity, but because he saw the young man’s capacity for excellence.
When Venice proved to be just like any small narrow-minded town, debating whether one of his sculptures was too controversial for the Windward Circle, and should be censored—a pathetic little moment in our community’s history—he declined an opportunity to comment. The art was out, beyond his door, it was for others to debate at that point.
“He’s a fighter,” a friend of Mr. Graham’s said to me, grabbing that straw—more like iron—as hope, when Mr. Graham’s health began failing about six months ago and the odds of him surviving were long. But Bob also knew when not to fight. The power of simply embodying. For those two things alone, Venice has been cheated the company of a man we needed for so much longer.
