Joan Baez

Wavy Gravy (Hugh Romney) , 2019

 
26 x 23 in

Joan sometimes likes to paint her subjects as they looked before they were famous. She did it with Gandhi, portraying him as a wannabe young Englishman, and she’s done it with hippie icon Wavy Gravy, painting an image of him when he was Hugh Romney, an aspiring young comedian and entertainer once managed by Lenny Bruce.

The portrait was unveiled at the San Francisco memorial for Ram Dass in January 2020, adding to the emotional richness of the evening. Wavy was overwhelmed when he saw himself as he had been as a young man, and his wife of 55 years, Jahanara, remarked, “That’s the man I married.”

As head of the Hog Farm commune, Hugh Romney would go on to become counterculture legend Way Gravy, a nickname he says was bestowed on him by B.B. King. His counterculture celebrity was born when he took the stage at Woodstock and announced, “What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000.”

Wavy has two main causes that have defined his life of service. He and his wife founded Camp Winnarainbow, a children’s circus and performing arts camp in with special scholarships for underprivileged kids that they’ve run in Mendocino County every summer since 1975.

His other great achievement is the Berkeley-based Seva Foundation, an international health organization for the poor he started in 1978 with Ram Dass and physician/epidemiologist Larry Brilliant. Seva, meaning “service” in Sanskrit, is best known for cataract operations that have restored the sight of millions of people in Cambodia, Nepal, Ethiopia, l and other developing countries. Wavy describes this work as “keeping blind people from bumping into stuff.”

Acknowledging his good deeds and rock ‘n’ roll spirit, the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir calls Wavy “a saint in a clown suit.” Wavy’s life of service with a smile and a fake red nose has been documented in the acclaimed 2009 film “Saint Misbehavin’.”

Among the many charitable organizations Wavy has started is the lesser known Phurst Church of Phun. And in that funky, funny spirit, Joan painted his portrait on an old clipboard she found lying around in her studio.

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