Desert Magic

Inspired by the vast and majestic landscapes of the American West, Edmund “Ed” Mell’s paintings are monumental — some measuring as much as 8 by 12 feet. Square-shouldered buttes. Ancient cliffs. Deep gorges. Soaring sandstone spires. Above it all, an arch of deep blue sky — sometimes quiet, sometimes piled high with menacing clouds. Sometimes the striated clouds produce ferocious thunderstorms bristling with lightning that slashes across the darkening heavens. These violent-but-short cloudbursts are often followed by tranquil vermilion sunsets, nature’s benediction. “There’s something about the desert sky that is magical,” says Mell. “You can get lost in it.”

According to Mell, his love of this austere land truly began in the summer of 1970 when he took a break from his job as junior art director at Young and Rubicam, one of the top advertising agencies in New York, to direct a summer art program on the Hopi reservation. “It was complete culture shock … going straight from New York City to the tiny village of Hotevilla (then population 200) atop the windswept Third Mesa in northern Arizona,”