During a recent family visit to Phoenix, I stopped by the Phoenix Art Museum to see “Ed Mell: In the Studio.” Mell, who died in 2024, was appropriately renowned for vibrant, angular landscapes of desert mesas, canyons, flowers, and awesome, abstract skies. I had a personal, distant connection to the exhibit’s theme, which is a collection of paintings and studies found in his studio (just a few blocks from the museum, as it happens) at the time of his death.
My only visit there came in the 1980s, when Mell shared the space with Phoenix New Times cartoonist Bob Boze Bell. The occasion was my first rehearsal as drummer for Bob’s band, the Zonies, a rockin’ combo specializing in Rolling Stones covers and epic renditions of “Louie-Louie,” “Gloria,” “Route 66,” etc. That we ever rehearsed anything, especially song endings, would be news to anyone who ever saw one of our gigs, which included house parties, radio-promotion events, an opening slot for the Beach Boys (really), and a primo set during the rollicking opening weekend of Hans Olson’s Sun Club. That I once got to hang out with the likes of Bell, Olson, and Mell still knocks me out, more so all the time.
Ed paused from creating masterpieces to observe our bashing that afternoon, smiling broadly (as I recall) at the 4/4 clamor. I would run into him again now and then around town, and he was always just the nicest genius I’d ever met. The exhibit was a wonderful opportunity to spend some mental time back in those days, and with Mell’s vibrant, angular clouds.
The exhibit closes April 16, 2026. Glad I caught it when I did. Here’s a look:
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