Monica Edwards, plein air painter and former Orange County Register staff artist, died Oct. 31 at her Silverado Canyon home.
After fighting cancer for nearly three years, she had reached her final days.
“I believe there is some kind of a oneness in the universe,” she said shortly before her doctor-assisted death at age 62. “If you’ve ever experienced something spiritual, you know there’s got to be something there — and I’m going to be part of it.”
In her final Facebook post, she wrote: “It’s been a good life. I trust I am flowing into the one thing that makes us all tick, makes us all harmonize when operating on our purest state. I’ll be there. And if I’m fortunate enough to be able to come say hello, you’ll know it’s me. I wish you all love, light, sweetness and harmony. And just enough of the opposite to be grateful for every other day you’re alive.”
Edwards made it clear that she wanted to die surrounded by loved ones, happiness and beauty.
“Most of us did not think this was possible, fighting back tears as she made her wishes clear,” her brother Alex Soffici said.
Remarkably, Edwards got her final wish in her backyard with family, friends and even smiles as she made jokes with her last breath.
“She chose a death with dignity and control, and demonstrated an unrelenting courage until the end,” Soffici said.
Born in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, Edwards was the youngest of two children to parents who were both doctors. They moved to Lancaster when she was 3, and then on to Colorado, Wyoming and Florida before settling in Orange County.
All that moving was hard on her, she said, because “you don’t ever have the ability to form a good, strong group of friends.”
Early on, she discovered the uplifting power of music, learning clarinet in fourth grade, becoming a “band geek” in seventh grade and an “all-state” musician in high school. She later learned saxophone, and performed at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano while in college.
“To me, there’s a synergy and a magic that happens around music that doesn’t happen with anything else,” she said.
She once dreamed of opening a bar to facilitate the “camaraderie that happens with music.” Instead, she opened her home to musicians and friends for jam sessions that she hosted for more than 20 years.
“I like seeing people have a good time, and if I could sit on the sidelines with a shaker, I was happy as a pig in a puddle,” she said.
As a child she won many art contests, which led her to a degree in biological illustration at Cal State Long Beach in 1989. Before graduating, she was drawing technical illustrations for aerospace giant Northrup Corp. and painting illustrations for the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro, where she met her lifelong friend and fellow artist Marsha Schindler.
“Ceaselessly curious and fearlessly adventurous, that’s how I’d describe her,” said Schindler, an art gallery owner who recalled a road trip they took to Yellowstone National Park, only to find it full.
“Monica’s kind demeanor and sensibilities usually connected us to a little magic,” Schindler said. “And sure enough, the park ranger directed us to a nearby site by a little creek… and a river… and a natural hot springs. “We thought we had died and gone to heaven.”
Edwards joined the Register in 1993 as a graphic artist, a job she hoped to keep for life. But in 2007, as the industry declined, she left to pursue other lines of work including Irvine Ranch tour guide, range parker, animal caretaker at Disneyland, animal handler at the Orange County Zoo, flight attendant and Alaskan-glacier tour guide.
“I told myself, ‘I’m gonna live out every dream job I’ve ever wanted to do and see what fits,’ ” she said.
But it wasn’t until she took art lessons from John Cosby, a pioneering artist who co-founded the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association, that she found her professional calling as a painter.
It had long been an avocation, ever since former boyfriend Andrew Lucas bought her paints and an easel for Christmas in 2000. She immediately fell in love with it.
“It takes everything I love about life and puts it into one experience, which is sitting still in nature, seeing deeply the colors around you, and listening to everything around you,” she said.
From that moment on, she could be seen biking around the county, towing a small carriage with her art supplies.
By 2017, when she became a full-time painter, she had mastered the skills of composition, values, color and use of line.
What was most important to her? “Letting the audience finish the picture,” she said. “My goal was to leave enough out of my painting so that the viewer is an active participant in it. Then I’ve accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.”
Her work has been featured at the Hilbert Museum in Orange, at a traveling exhibition in Sorrento, Italy, and at the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts, where she was a regular for many years.
They also hang scores of friends in the homes.
“I have one of your paintings right here – it still makes me choke up, and damn, the faces and hands and everything that you said YOU JUST COULDN’T DO are absolutely perfect!“ friend and Register staff columnist Teri Sforza wrote to Edwards days before her death. “How brave you were to follow your passion, and I hope you’re satisfied that you’ve produced work of true and lasting beauty, capturing more than images, but remarkably… feelings.”
Over the years, Edwards traveled the world to paint, paraglide and even hike the Camino de Santiago, a six-week pilgrimage to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela.
“She was my best friend,” said her son, Adrien who, like his mom, has become an artist and musician. “I’ve never met someone so fearless and loving, so courageous and gentle. She taught me to treat people right and, as she always said, ‘Do good, and aim high.’ ”
Edwards is survived by her son, Adrien Edwards, 34, of Silverado Canyon, and Soffici and his wife, Susan, of Santa Barbara.
A memorial service for Monica Edwards will take place from 1-5 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 10, at the Silverado Community Center, 27641 Silverado Canyon Road.
