I paint to rest from the phenomena of the external world-to pronounce and to make notations of its essences with which to verify the inner eye.

He lived at The Rock with a succession of cats and dogs all called Edith in honor of poet Edith Sitwell. In later years and especially at the end of his notable career Graves returned to sculpture originally created forty years earlier and received critical acclaim for his "Instruments of a New Navigation" works inspired by NASA and space exploration. In 1954 Graves staged the first Northwest art "Happening" sending invitations to everyone on the Seattle Art Museum mailing list:

"You or your friends are not invited to the exhibition of Bouquet and Marsh paintings by the 8 best painters in the Northwest to be held on the afternoon and evening of the longest day of the year the first day of summer June 21 at Morris Graves' palace in exclusive Woodway Park.

Graves was also a mystic. Along with Guy Anderson Kenneth Callahan William Cumming and Mark Tobey he founded the Northwest School.