Episode +15—Lost And Found Edges
Are you like me? Have you been in a constant state of fight-or-flight for the entirety of 2025?
Maybe that’s why I just haven’t been able to come up with any Achtoon-worthy U2 ideas (AWU2I). The average AWU2I means at least two weeks of work for me, and it’s fun work, but it takes me away from my regular studio projects. And my regular studio projects (RSP) have ruled my life during this distressing year, which has sucked in pretty much every way except for the RSPs.
Did you know your girl became a signature member of the National Watercolor Society? Did you know your girl is on the board of the Watercolor USA Honor Society? Did you know your girl appeared in three art magazines this summer? All of that is thanks to the RSPs.
I’ve been projecting images onto my subjects to create two-pictures-in-one watercolors. These feature family members and myself.
Left to right: Guardians of Each Other’s Solitude; The Idea; Ticket to the Show, Becoming Eve. All were painted in 2024-25.
I promise that you will see six new U2 paintings when you scroll down.
I’ll explain why 2025 has been distressing for me (beyond the extremely obvious, my-country-is-being-destroyed reasons).
Do you ever compare your own health issues with what was going on with Bono when he was your age?
I managed to get through age 50 with no back surgery.
I managed to get through age 54 with no catastrophic bike accident.
I am now 56, and earlier this year I had a (voluntary) CT heart scan that told me I have the heart of someone younger than 35, and it was described as “grossly unremarkable.” I do not have an eccentric heart!
But. This spring I managed to have my own brush with mortality. Long story short: something suspicious was found, and I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to prove to my doctor that I didn’t have cancer, and one of those hoops was an MRI.
I am claustrophobic and dreaded being placed in a snug tunnel while annoying sounds assaulted my being for forty whole minutes. I wore a sleep mask throughout, and while I felt like a horse with blinders on, this was the right call. I was given headphones that played pop hits of the 80s, but something was wrong with them. About five songs in, the volume cut out during “Power Of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News. So all I had were my thoughts to keep me company. I went to my happy place and tried to ignore the LOUDASS CLANGING AND BANGING AND CHIMING that went on and on, stopping and starting at irregular intervals. It sounded like bad industrial music, and naturally I thought about the MRI imagery that started off the E+i tour. I also tried to pretend that I was listening to Edge experimenting with various sounds and textures, and ultimately that made the experience endurable. If you ever find yourself inside an MRI tube, I highly recommend you do the same. It’s about as close as we’re gonna get to a new U2 album anytime soon.
The suspicious thing “resolved itself” and disappeared. So I don’t have cancer, hooray! I tried to turn this MRI story into an AWU2I, but it kind of ran out of steam.
This is my Visionaries series. These are artists I know and admire, and I projected images of their artwork onto them, took reference photos, and created watercolors from them. Left to right: Robert Lee Mejer; Ann Miller Titus; Howard Kuo; Sam Lessen.
Then a few months ago, a two-hour video materialized on YouTube. It showed U2 performing a full concert in Tempe, Arizona back in December 1987, and the quality was glorious (albeit dimly lit). The video was passed around among chronically-online fans before it was ultimately taken down a few days later. Apparently it wasn’t supposed to be released…? I dunno. It was fun while it lasted, and I took a bunch of screenshots that inspired an AWU2I. I figured I could use them to make something beautiful. Something that wouldn’t be a problem.
Knowing that The U2 ™®© LLC All Rights Reserved Incorporated Foundation has reliably ignored me and my depictions of its members for the past 23 years, I decided to proceed with the idea, despite the video take-down. Nobody’s making any money off you here, U2, so you can rest easy! In fact, all PJ and I do is promote you and try to make you seem cool, and we lose money each and every year!
Enough preamble. This was my idea: what’s the minimum amount of visual information I would need to make a U2 painting? Like, how much could I leave out and still know a fellow fan would recognize who this person is?
Minimal Adam, 11”x14” watercolor.
Yeah! That’s fun. Could I paint an Edge face using five or six little white blobs?
Lost Edge, 6”x9” watercolor.
You bet I could! Do you see the way the dark background engulfs his face and body, so all you’re seeing are highlights? And can you tell that he is wearing a hat, but you don’t see the entire hat with clear outlines? That, my friend, is what we in the world of painting call LOST AND FOUND EDGES.
And that is in fact his name!
Let’s do a Bono.
Shadow Cowboy, 10”x8” watercolor.
Okay, this one was less easy because Bono is NEVER easy, but yeah: we have chin, nose, lip, hat, and pony with some lost and found edges.
The quality of the forbidden video was much higher than the usual fan-with-a-potato-camera clips that can be found on the worship-worthy U2onthisday IG account, for example. Even so, getting good screenshots was difficult for me. Maybe I’d land on a great Edge, but the Bono beside him was unrecognizable. Any time a band member was in motion, the freeze frame was slightly blurry. The best screenshots happened when they were standing still, and those moments were few and far between because I was dealing with Young U2, and Young U2 liked to move the hell around.
End of ‘40’, 8”x14” watercolor. (This was the ONLY time I was able to get a clear screenshot of Larry!)
Watching them move around was endearing. Bono was a whirling dervish at times, and he pretty much skipped down a runway towards the center of Sun Devil Stadium while deftly avoiding Major Motion Picture tech stumbling blocks that were everywhere. And his random and sometimes explosive movements weren’t so obviously choreographed back then. As always, this kind of thing made me nostalgic for the good old days, both theirs and mine.
That December night in Arizona marked the last stop on the Joshua Tree tour. U2 were a band whose collective dream had come true, and the enormity of the stadium seemed to bring them closer together. Their joyful affection for each other was unmistakable as they performed on a plain stage that didn’t light up but was made of ordinary black boards, in a venue whose sound probably wasn’t ideal but maybe it didn’t have to be.
Adam’s performance was a revelation to me, especially his interactions with Bono. I wanted to paint a version of this screenshot, but I wasn’t happy with the composition. But it’s a good example of the way Adam maneuvered around him.
One of my screenshots, and if any of you attended a JT-era concert, could you even see them? Did they use…candlelight?? SO DARK!
During “Bad,” Adam placed himself in front of Bono and turned as if he wanted to check in on his singer who began to inhabit this exceptionally dark song. Adam checked in several times, and he inspired me to write down “doglike devotion” for lack of better words. But I’ve seen beloved pets react to their people this way—Adam crouched down low and looked up at Bono intently, and he even cocked his head a little. Are you okay? It was so touching, and just thinking about it makes me want to cry.
Later on, after viewing the two hour concert and harvesting fifty (no kidding) screenshots, I found it difficult to watch random clips of U2’s 360 tour that entered my IG feed because I couldn’t find 1987 U2 in there. I couldn’t make that Bono be this Bono.
This Bono, 10”x8” watercolor.
As I continued to doomscroll, I came across a TikTok with this caption: “Every former teenage girl is mourning a rock star who died.” Then it showed a seemingly endless carousel of beautiful, dead rock stars—everyone I’m sure you’re picturing and more—and it took my breath away. We’ve been so fortunate.
They’re still here. They may be biding their limited time until the perfect concert audio system is adapted to every arena and stadium in the world before they’ll tour again (I’m guessing), but they’re still here.
And you know what? I’m still here, and so are you.
Found Edge, 11”x14” watercolor.