Paul Edwards: Architect went back to the drawing board for final romance

Edwards was worn out, but his wife still had a little dance in her. As her husband leaned against the car grinning, Kelly polkaed around the parking lot.

Months later, the couple reminisced about that night.

"The last thing we talked about was dancing," Kelly said.

It was the image of that ideal Tucson night Edwards held in his mind Sept. 25 while lying in a hospital bed enduring the final stage of malignant melanoma. As Kelly finished recounting the story, her husband slipped away. He was 53.

"He had a nice death. It was kind of perfect, actually," she said.

His final memory was steeped in romance and whimsy, both of which appealed to Edwards in his life and in his art.

He met his future wife in 1977, when they were students in the University of Arizona College of Architecture. They had one weekend date touring the state and realized they weren't suited for each other. She was a Jersey girl. He was a tarantula-loving desert dweller.

"I think I was too boring for him and he was too wild for me," Kelly said.

The pair lost touch. She headed back East. He stayed here.

It took almost three decades for them to renew their acquaintance.

A little over four years ago, Kelly posted a notice on her College of Architecture class Web site rallying support for an international conference planned for Tucson. Edwards saw her posting and dialed her number.

"He called and said, 'Would you like to see what I've built in the last 27 years?'" Kelly said.

When she arrived in Tucson for the conference, her old classmate gave her a tour of the public art projects he helped design.

"It looked like he'd cleaned himself up and looked respectable," Kelly said. "He saw on my Web site that I was a part-time musician. We both had gotten a hint that each other had changed."

But it was Edwards' willingness to expose his flaws — as well as the windsurfing stickers on his truck — that hooked Kelly, who also enjoys windsurfing.

"In four or five hours I was sunk," she said. "He told me everything that was wrong with him. He exposed his soft underbelly to me, as he said.

"There's something about a guy who tells you what's wrong with him while showing you what he's proud of."

In the years since Edwards first met Kelly, he'd cultivated a successful architectural career and become known for public art projects.

Beginning in the early 1990s, Edwards began bidding for public art projects with artist Chris Tanz. Together they created 10 public-art pieces in Tucson, Phoenix and Scottsdale.

They include: "Sun Circle" along the Rillito River Park between North Flowing Wells Road and North La Cholla Boulevard; "Many Color Mountain" at West Ajo Way and South Mission Road; "Silver Linings" on the west concourse at the Tucson International Airport; "Play Ball" at the Kino Sports Park and Recreation Center on East Ajo Way; "Sand Trout" on Tanque Verde Road where it crosses Rose Hill Wash; "Pipe With Flow 30" at North Mountain Avenue and East Fort Lowell Road; and "Splash" on Mountain and East Glenn Street.

Edwards was in the midst of a brouhaha over the two Mountain Avenue projects when he and Kelly reconnected.

The works were part of a rock-and-water theme along Mountain Avenue between East Speedway and East Grant Road. Edwards' vision for the first sculpture was water flowing from one pipe into another; the second was of water spouting from pipes. But some residents and business owners thought the tan sculptures looked more like a sewer-line break.

At the time, Edwards said: "I think if it was something that pleased everyone, it wouldn't have much impact."

Nevertheless, the critics prevailed and the sculptures were moved to a new location in Silverlake Park, at Silverlake Road and Kino Parkway.

Another of the projects he and Tanz collaborated on had much happier memories for Edwards. He and Kelly wed at "Sun Circle" 3 1/2 years ago at sunset during the spring equinox.

"He wanted to get married in the spring because it was hopeful and represented new life and new beginnings," Kelly said.

Edwards and his daughter from a previous relationship pedaled down the aisle on a tandem bicycle, while Kelly perched on a seat in front of the handlebars. They were surrounded by family and friends who greeted them by playing kazoos. The nuptials were followed by a night of dancing.

After the Mountain Avenue dust-up, Edwards backed away from public art projects. In spring 2006 — a few months before he was diagnosed with melanoma — he joined ABA Architects as the lead designer.

"His reputation is unique because he crossed into doing public art as well as architecture. That's one of the things that I found very intriguing about him and led us to hire him," said Kim Fernández, one of the firm's owners. "He just has that creative ability that allows him to cross over into other disciplines.

"He worked for a number of years on his own, but he really did like to work collaboratively," she said.

It was Edwards' ability to work on deadline designing residential, commercial and public buildings coupled with the creativity he tapped into for his art that made him unique, said Tanz, his partner in the arts.

"I think it was very gratifying for him to do the public art as well as the architecture," she said. "It was a different universe. I think public art is wonderful because whatever you're interested in can be subject matter, fodder for it.

"I think Paul enjoyed expanding beyond buildings and having the whole world become possible inspiration for construction and creation."

Find a photo gallery of this Life Story at azstarnet.com/slideshows

Life Stories

This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories. Past "Life Stories" are online at go.azstarnet.com/lifestories