DeGrazia's wife, Marion, recalled this time as "all work and no play." "The only time for relaxation away from the studio was on the trail in the Superstition Mountains, while prospecting for gold, or with the Indians in Arizona and Mexico. When invited to have a show in Cannes France, he refused to go. The only place he wanted to be was in Indian country." DeGrazia explains himself, "because I was born in the southwest, and live there, I live it with a passion. The state has a harsh temperament as though it were alive. It is rough, colorless, and silent. And yet, you feel a gentleness, see beauty, and color in a storm, the skies roar, the cactus of the desert in its prickly silence bursts forth for a moment of exquisite beauty."