2041 East Waverly Street

When I drove by this home on the route of the fall artists’ open studios tour November 14th, the scene looked as if an artist lives here:

Though I saw the house number on the red circle, I didn't notice the number on the curb:

The pole was painted in same style as the box and curb:

Thanks, homeowner, for this fun scene!

2609 East Mabel Street

Along my route on the fall 2015 artists’ open studios tour, one artist had this mailbox out front with a tour sign hung over it:

Those are steel cholla on top — and a flag shaped like a cowboy with chaps to keep the cholla away:

4449 East 10th Street

It looks like the Mann Family have roots in Montana and Arizona:

Thanks, Brady and Celia...

I snapped their mailbox photo on November 7th.

708 North Desert Avenue

Here's the fourth of four mailboxes in the three blocks of this little street:

I've read that Sesame Street characters have been updated by HBO in 2016, so this photo from February 3 might not show the latest faces.

820 North Desert Avenue

This short section of Desert Avenue just north of 6th Street has lots of mailboxes. Here's the third of the series:

I was there on November 7th.

643 North Desert Avenue

Here's a black box with a yellow flower and the house number on both sides:

This is one of several mailboxes I found on Desert Avenue November 7th.

825 North Desert Avenue

Let's start a sunny, warm January day with the sun (and the moon) on a plain gray mailbox — painted by a young artist, I'm guessing:

The west side of the box has flowers around a heart:

I found the box on my early-morning ride November 7th.

5142 East Lee Street

There's no was I could I miss this red mailbox with white flowers as I rolled along Lee Street. (By the way, Lee is a great east-west bicycling street that's even quieter than Pima — which is just a block north.)

It caught my eye on November 7th.

5714 East Lee Street

We usually don't show mailboxes with posts made of chain. But this black box is too different — at least, I haven't seen anything like it yet! Its “post,” made of bicycle or motorcycle chain, is in the shape of Arizona.

I rolled by on my November 7th ride and almost missed it; the chain looked like a jumble. Something made me stop and look a bit more…

2001 North Ridgeway Road

Here's a mailbox with blue-green desert plants on a lavender background and a snake-shaped flag...

The other side and the front are faded — probably by the sun:

I slithered by on November 7th.

1003 North Sonoita Avenue

This gorgeous handpainted mailbox popped out along my early-morning bike ride November 7th. But the lighting — spots of bright sunshine and a mailbox with both black and white parts — made getting a good photograph a challenge. I've edited the photos to try to bring out the design:

That's the front of the mailbox.

711 South Erin Avenue

This cheery blue mailbox — with touches of red and a light-green post and door — made me feel at home on October 26, 2015.

4755 East 17th Street

This plain gray mailbox is covered with stencils (?) of horses.

I galloped by (on my bicycle) October 26th.

5853 E. North Wilshire Drive

Let's start the new year at a mailbox decorated for one of places — the Orient. (It's west of the International Date Line, which means the time there is much later; it's far east of Arizona — so much that the day can be tomorrow there when it's “today” here. Think how New York's celebration at midnight in Times Square happens at 10 PM Arizona Time? And so on even farther east: midnight in London is 4 PM in Tucson.)

But enough world geography… this is a mailbox blog!

I'm not quite sure where this box is located. It's south of Park Place Mall. That neighborhood has both East North Wilshire Drive and East Wilshire Terrace. Bing Maps Streetside shows a home on E. North Wilshire, but it shows the house number as 5888 instead of the 5853 I wrote down. Hmmm.

Anyway, if you drive into that part of E. North Wilshire you'll see this mailbox on a stoneware post.

You can look forward to bunches of boxes in 2016.

Being kind rocks (but...): 6046 East 14th Street

As I ride my bike around Tucson looking for artistic mailboxes, from time to time I realize that a clever design I first spotted a while back isn't so unique. This one, for instance, looks a lot like other boxes on a pile of rocks. The difference here is the Ben's Bells “be kind” sticker.

I rolled (and rocked) by on October 26th.

Four rocked-out (or -up) boxes are probably enough. So I'm going to add them to the Not these mailboxes list. If you want to see the other boxes on rocks, click there and scroll down the list.

239 North Silverbell Road

I noticed this mailbox on October 25th, while I was visiting an artist on one of the fall Open Studios Tours. The post is made from a (former) saguaro cactus:

Just by chance, the mailbox is Christmas-green. Here's the other side:

The wall around the home is worth a look, too. You can see it in yesterday's post on the Tucson Murals Project blog.

4842 North Fontana Avenue

I spotted this Halloween-themed mailbox — surrounded by cobwebs — (naturally enough) just before Halloween. For some reason, I forgot to show it until now. I took the photo on October 25th.

341 East Burrows Place

This whale of a mailbox even has a canoeist as the flag (which you can see in the first photo below):

I floated by on October 25th.

1215 North 3rd Avenue

One side of this mostly lavender and blue-greenish box has a tidy tile number sign on the post.

The number on the other side is made with what look to me like stick-on letters.

I found it on October 23rd.

502 East Sahuaro Street

Subtle coloring makes this mailbox different from many.

I found it October 23rd.

Your story through a mailbox: Dímelo

Back on November 25th, we posted an entry about the project named Dímelo (“You tell me”): Stories of the Southwest. Watch their website — and, in January, look for the special mailboxes around town or go to the website to tell your story.

Highland Free School Rocks!

Their mailbox is on a pile of rocks, at least. :) And whenever I ride my bicycle past the school (it's between Aviation Bikeway and the U of A) it always seems like a tidy and happy place. On October 23rd, the playground was full of students. The mailbox itself is a lot of fun, too.

City of Tucson midtown mailbox

A sunny welcome to Tucson's Ward 6 Midtown Council Office:

The bottom of the other side has part of a bumper sticker, and the top of the box seems to say ART ART:

This box brightened an otherwise cloudy Sunday afternoon, October 18th.

2013 North Swan Road

If you're moving like a snail today after a big Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, this mailbox is for you:

I actually found the mailbox on October 18th. It's just north of the mailboxes we saw last time.

Update (March 8, 2021): The mailbox has been repainted.

Dimelo's Story Mailboxes (and more)

Here's a entry from the Limón y Sal blog that's partly about a story mailbox project. Click the “this one” link, underneath the photo of artist Rudy Flores, to see one of the wild mailboxes he's planning. There are more mailbox photos at the left side near the bottom of the page — though none as wild as the story mailbox.

Here's the blog entry: Downtown: Old Pueblo Studios.

2005 and 2007 North Swan Road

As you're headed southbound on Swan past Grant, just to your right — or headed northbound past Pima, across the road on your left — is this double-headed set of mailboxes. Behind is (what I think is a) kachina dancer.

[By the way, the website kachina.us says “The word kachina (kah-chee-nah) has long been used by outsiders to refer to any of the hundreds of spiritual beings central to Hopi religious life as well as to the dolls that depict them. However, according to the Hopi, katsina (kahts-ee-nah) is more correct and preferred. In English, the plural of kachina is kachinas, but in the Hopi language the plural of katsina is katsinam.”]

I rolled by — and stopped! — on October 18th.

Update (March 15, 2021): Today's entry What's behind 2005 and 2007 North Swan has the story of the mailboxes and people who lived in the building behind.

4401 East Glenn Street

What happened to this mailbox? Is that duct tape around it? I didn't make a note about it when I stopped by on October 17th.

The big attraction, anyway, is the post covered with multicolored rocks.

4349 East Glenn Street

We've got bountiful boxes now, so I'll start posting two a week.

I think this might be a ladybug mailbox: red with black spots and two antennae!?

I buzzed by (do ladybugs buzz?) on October 17th.

12550 West Manville Road

This flag-covered mailbox is just in time for Veterans Day. Although the address is on Manville Road, I spotted it a bit farther north on Sanders Road, October 25th.

The door is held (mostly) closed with a thick rubber band. You can see that better in the photo of the other side, below. It faces south and has probably been blasted by the Sun for years.

1821 North Calle El Trigo

Here's another of Emily Mann's creative custom-made mailboxes. She just sent a photo and wrote:

It is over in La Cebadilla at the end of Tanque Verde/Reddington. ... I wish it had its own post. The other boring boxes either steal from or add to its ownership of the perch.

I am putting ceramic “eggs” with the street address in the nest [after they are fired] later this week.

If you'd like to see more of her work, she's the owner of Solaz Designs Metalworks. They'll be one of the stops along TPAC's Fall Open Studio Tour November 14-15. Here's their tour web page. This mailbox isn't far away, so you could also stop by and see the “eggs.”

(By the way, in case you haven't been keeping track of all the studio tours this fall, there's another one this coming weekend: Heart of Tucson Art. It showcases artists in central Tucson.)

Mystery mailbox #2

Unlike the first mailbox in this series, whose artist will remain anonymous (for now, at least), this wild box is by Emily Mann of solaz.biz. The owner would like the location kept private… but we can tell you that it's somewhere in the Tucson Mountains.

The photos above came from Emily's Instagram feed — which shows a lot more of her creative metalwork.