EDITOR'S LETTER

editor's LETTER IN MEMORIAM ED MELL 1942 2024

ED LEFT ME A MESSAGE on Halloween. I've listened to it at least a dozen times in the past few weeks. "Hello Robert. This is Ed. You're probably wondering why you haven't heard from me. Well, turns out, I have cancer. I haven't done anything for months, and I haven't painted in a month and a half. I'm starting chemo in a couple of days. I'll be at Mayo, so I'm in good shape in that regard. I've got the best that I can ask for. Anyway, I have a little bit of an uphill battle. I'm really sorry we didn't get to make that trip to Prescott, but maybe in the near future. Talk to you soon."

We talked the next day. And talked and talked and talked. Like we always did. I never thought I'd never see him again. It never even occurred to me. When John Prine went into the hospital with COVID-19, I had a feeling he wasn't coming out. He didn't look good. And he'd been compromised for many years. But not Ed. Ed seemed strong and fit and full of energy. He was supposed to get better. The cancer didn't see it that way.

ED LEFT US ON FEBRUARY 21. The sunset that night was from one of his paintings - glowing embers in a fiery sky. It was spectacular, like a sacred welcome mat from the kingdom of heaven. Ed would have loved it. He loved big clouds in the sky and the color palette that unfurls at twilight, especially when set against the broad landscape of Arizona, the place where he was born in 1942.

Ed's parents were pioneers, settling in Phoenix in the early 1900s. When their son came along, they encouraged his interest in art even as a boy, Ed's gift was obvious. As he grew older, the allure of the paintbrush grew stronger, and by the time he got to Los Angeles, where he studied at the ArtCenter College of Design, he was already on his way. Ed Mell was going to be a great artist.

His first stop after California was New York. Like his favorite painter, Maynard Dixon, Ed was drawn to the epicenter of the design world to work as an illustrator. Both men spent five years in Manhattan, and both men were happy to leave. "I couldn't wait to get out and get back to the West," Ed told me. "I had a friend who'd invited me to teach on the Hopi Reservation. So going from New York City to a village of 200 in Northern Arizona was a welcomed culture shock. That experience had a big influence on my career."

He was shaped by the masters, too. Those who came before him. "Artists are a continuum of artists from the past," Ed told me. "Most of my heroes ranged from the modernists in New Mexico to Maynard Dixon ... those artists are my biggest influence, for sure."

Ultimately, Ed found his own voice. A distinctive visual voice that is instantly recognizable. "When I first started, I was doing very minimal landscape pieces," he said. "I evolved out of that because there wasn't enough substance there. My work evolved from very minimal to a little more information, a little more modern ... then my work evolved into a period of my version of realism. And then I revisited my modernism. When you're trying to find something new, you end up finding something that you weren't even shooting for."

"Ed was an original who lived a life surrounded by art and the creative process," says Mark Sublette, a fine art gallery owner who represented our mutual friend for three decades. "That drive pushed him toward excellence for half a century. His work ethic and his abilities never faltered, and like a great wine, Ed had the rare distinction of having his work get better as he aged."

When I asked Mark about Ed, he said he tried to think of a single word to sum him up but couldn't narrow it down, so he gave me five. The first four were humble, trailblazer, generous and revered. The fifth was Mell, which he defined as "the Arizona vernacular used to describe a breathtaking sunset or cloudscape."

Wow. Look at the sky. That's a beautiful Mell sunset.

Not many artists become an adjective, but, like Mozart, Ed was in a master class of his own. His talent has been praised at the highest levels. And his artwork hangs in the private collections of renowned galleries and famous celebrities around the world. However, you would never have known that by talking to him. He was extraordinarily humble about his work and his worth as one of thevery best. He'd much rather talk about his family than talk about himself. "There's always somebody better than you," he told me. "It's just another job, and we all just try to do our jobs well."

Despite his humility, Ed turned out to be one of the most impressive artists on the continuum. "He took every artistic endeavor to the highest possibility," says Bruce Aiken, another distinguished Arizona artist. "Ed was a mellow and easygoing guy, but dedicated and passionate about his creative work. I will miss him. He was a peer, a friend and a colleague that I knew for more than 40 years."

My introduction to Ed came about 25 years ago. We were at a photo shoot for a piece that a local magazine was doing on Scottsdale's most eligible singles. Neither one of us could understand why we were there. Yet, there we were, all dressed up, feeling out of place. Years later, it brought us some laughs. Long after we'd become ineligible.

We laughed a lot in our time together, which happened often, but never enough. Most of the time we'd go out to get Mexican food. That was Ed's favorite. Then we'd hang out in his studio, a cinder block building in the neighborhood where he grew up. Ed was proud of his roots, and that old building helped keep him connected. As a creative space, it was like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, a place packed with fascination. Rare books, antique cameras, toy trucks made out of tin... everywhere you looked there was something interesting. And every time I was there, he'd show me something I hadn't seen before. Sometimes it was something he'd created - a new painting for a collector, a stamp for the U.S. Postal Service or album art for a rock star - but usually it was something else. A box of old black-and-white photographs from a yard sale, a piece of artwork by Norman Rockwell or the wooden frame that Diane Keaton graciously returned to him after buying one of his paintings. One time, Ed showed me his prized possession - the original sketch for The Colorado Desert, a 1923 painting by Maynard Dixon. Whatever it was, he'd talk about it with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy sneaking a whoopee cushion onto his second-grade teacher's seat.

He'd talk. And we'd talk. For hours and hours. It was so easy. Astrologers say that Virgos are unusually compatible. That there's an innate loyalty and gratitude toward each other that nurtures a balanced relationship. I don't know what to believe about Mercury in retrograde, or anything else about astrology, but I do believe in the compatibility of Virgos. Ed and I have birthdays that are three days apart, and there's no doubt we were blessed with some kind of Virgo synchronicity.

"I always enjoy hanging out with you," he wrote to me one afternoon after a three-hour lunch. "We seem to fill in the blanks for each other." In just a few words, he summed up our friendship. The easiest and most genuine friendship I've ever known. Ed was my dear friend, but now my friend is gone, and I don't know how to fill in the enormous blank he leaves behind. We had a conversation once about losing a loved one. He was sad, and I shared with him something the Tuscarora people say: "They are not gone who live in the hearts they left behind."

Now it's me who is sad, and I realize those words are just words. Vowels and consonants huddled together in a hopeless Hail Mary. They aren't tangible. And they can't ease the pain or fill in the blank. Not yet, anyway. It's too soon. Maybe someday. In the meantime, Ed will live in my heart, as the Tuscarora say, and I will smile when I think about him in that higher place, painting those fiery sunsets from a new perspective. It's a vision that will help me see through the tears. They're still there. And I know I'm not alone.

When we asked Ed Mell if he'd be willing to create a piece of fine art for our 90th anniversary cover, he said: "I'd love to. As an Arizona native, it's one of those 'bucket list' things." We were flattered, excited and grateful.

On behalf of everyone at Arizona Highways, I offer my deepest condolences to Ed's beloved wife, Rose Marie; his talented son, Carson; and the many others who, like me, had the privilege of calling him a friend. So long, my friend. I'll look for you in the sunset. I can't wait to see what you and Mother Nature come up with.