Monday, June 24, 2019
Monday, June 3, 2019
Monday, May 27, 2019
Monday, May 20, 2019
Monday, May 13, 2019
2933 East Florence Drive
Though lots of mailboxes are embedded in a stuccoed post, this one is different because there's a planter next to it. The bright design is eye-catching, too… I couldn't miss it!
Here's a close-up of the box itself:
I found it along the route of the Heart of Tucson Art open studio tour April 14th.
Monday, May 6, 2019
Monday, April 29, 2019
Monday, April 22, 2019
3048 North Treat Avenue
I was on the Heart of Tucson Art open studio tour April 14th when, as I turned onto Treat Avenue, I saw this box topped with two birds.
The lighting made it tough to get a photo, so I spent a couple of minutes under the tree trying various things with my cheap cell phone camera.
I've never understood why some homeowners are concerned or confused when someone (me!) takes photos of their artistic mailbox. But they came out to ask what I was doing. I told them, and I asked if they'd made the mailbox. They said it was there when they bought the home. I thanked them and left as soon as I could — with some blurry photos that I've tried to fix before I posted them here.
I think they wrote down my license plate number as I drove away.
I hope you appreciate the trouble I go through to show you great mailboxes. :) :)
I think they wrote down my license plate number as I drove away.
I hope you appreciate the trouble I go through to show you great mailboxes. :) :)
Monday, April 15, 2019
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
3302 East 24th Street
I pulled over to check my map near dusk on the evening of February 26th. Near the car was a plain-looking mailbox in a cinder-block box partly filled with dirt. The post looked special, though, as if it had a faded design painted on it:
Sure enough, the design was some kind of climbing vine. I'm guessing that the post had a vine, or the cinder-block box used to hold some kind of plants.
Clever idea, eh?
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
9319 East Anne Place
Just next door to last week's "Golfbox" (you can see it closer in the entry 9311 East Anne Place) is this wild-looking box that David Aber named "Snakebox.
Below is a closeup of the head.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
1934 South Avenita Planeta (is this a manufactured mailbox?)
David Aber finds phenomenal mailboxes. Even by his usual standard, this one (a castle on top of a dragon?!) seemed too good to be handmade (which is one of the criteria for showing a box here). I'm sure there was no hint of that commercialization; if there were, he wouldn't have sent the photo. Still, I wondered: Was this mailbox really handmade?
You may not be aware of the online search services that will find similar images. For instance, you can go to one of those services, upload a photo of the mailbox in someone's front yard, and see whether the service (for example, Google Images) finds a photo of a similar mailbox somewhere else in the world. That kind of capability is used for businesses to find you, via one of their “security” cameras, in an aisle, shopping for some item, and add to your customer profile that you’re (for example) interested in baby toys.
I decided to try searching for this amazing mailbox: Is there a photo of a similar mailbox somewhere online? If I didn't find a similar photo, that doesn't mean the mailbox wasn't mass-produced, but it cuts the chances. Because the vegetation, concrete, rocks, and house number probably won't be in other photos of the same mass-produced mailbox, I used my favorite free photo editor, GIMP, to remove all of those things from the photo Dave sent. This photo is what I sent to Google, Bing, and a couple of other image-search sites. (I used the “Intelligent Scissors” tool to remove the background and the Clone Stamp tool to replace the house number with the white areas of the sign.)
I didn't find a mailbox like this anywhere else. Even if it is mass-produced, it's pretty incredible, isn't it?
Thanks, Dave, for the fun and for the puzzle.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
7440 North Benet Drive
Driving along Silverbell on February 2nd, I ended up taking a wrong turn and winding along a road between a bland-looking subdivision and some land that was much less developed. As I was about to turn around, I spotted this mailbox. It was for a home back in the less-developed land. (The development had honeycombed stacks of plain Postal Service mailboxes.)
Next, I'll zoom in to just the south and west sides of the box. I like the eagle carrying an envelope across the mailbox end:
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Bucking Betty coming soon to a home near you?
I found Bucking Betty out in the desert earlier this month. There was no sight of her owner. The steel sculpture artist Pat Frederick might know something about where she is by the time you see this. Pat hopes Betty can find a new home…
(Pat is one of my favorite Tucson sculptors. I was short of mailbox photos to post online, so I asked if I could show the photo here. Maybe you'll see Betty along Pima County roads sometime soon?)
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
5000 East Grant Road #126
This mailbox extravaganza is inside the Far Horizons Co-Op Estates, a mobile home facility for ages 55+. There's not a "No Tresspassing" sign, and it's a nice and inviting place, but I'm guessing that residents wouldn't appreciate a parade of mailbox-lovers. (This one is close to the entrance from Grant Road, at least…)
I found it after I visited a friend in another home on July 26, 2018.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
3234 East 23rd Street
This clever box seems to be mounted on two round metal posts that come out from the bottom. But, if you look more closely, the posts are actually attached to the top of the prickly pear cactus…
Just underneath the mailbox
And, the amazingly lifelike cactus is actually made of metal (or maybe wood?). Look closely at the “pads” above and you'll see that they have square sides and edges.
Closeup of quail near bottom of
prickly pear “post”
prickly pear “post”
I spotted this masterpiece (“masterpost?” sorry.) on July 20, 2018.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Mexican mailbox heaven: Palacio Postal
The last few months of 2018 were challenging for me. I haven't been able to take mailbox photos or post them. But things should be back to normal soon! I've pre-posted mailboxes for the rest of January, and I'm hoping that I'll be back to posting photos weekly.
After my life settled down last month, I spent two weeks in Mexico City — which, by the way, the city government now calls CDMX (it's short for CiuDad de MéXico). Though I'd been there before (the photos below are from February, 2016), I stopped in again during a tour of the city center — where our guide told us the building was constructed in the early 20th Century by president Portfio Diaz. He, she said, built grand things to celebrate his power. I believe she also said that it was the first public building in Mexico City with electricity. (With all of its ornate lights and the elevators, it must have needed a lot of power!)
Here are a few postal-type photos of things I spotted in 2016 — when I had time to look closely. (By the way, until now I've been putting captions before photos with a colon at the end of the caption. From now on, I'm going to start putting the captions underneath the photos — assuming I remember to, that is. :)
By the way, today's entry on the Tucson Murals Project blog is of a beautiful building address in the Roma Norte neighborhood of CDMX.
If you click on the Location below, you'll see Palacio Postal on a map. Happy 2019!
After my life settled down last month, I spent two weeks in Mexico City — which, by the way, the city government now calls CDMX (it's short for CiuDad de MéXico). Though I'd been there before (the photos below are from February, 2016), I stopped in again during a tour of the city center — where our guide told us the building was constructed in the early 20th Century by president Portfio Diaz. He, she said, built grand things to celebrate his power. I believe she also said that it was the first public building in Mexico City with electricity. (With all of its ornate lights and the elevators, it must have needed a lot of power!)
View from outside
Here are a few postal-type photos of things I spotted in 2016 — when I had time to look closely. (By the way, until now I've been putting captions before photos with a colon at the end of the caption. From now on, I'm going to start putting the captions underneath the photos — assuming I remember to, that is. :)
(The wording says, literally: 1580 1st major mail;
I think it means something like 1580: first national mail)
I think it means something like 1580: first national mail)
Behind the scenes, through the bars:
a woman sorting mail
a woman sorting mail
A place for third-class machine-franked mail
(Franking is mail that's sent for free)
(Franking is mail that's sent for free)
By the way, today's entry on the Tucson Murals Project blog is of a beautiful building address in the Roma Norte neighborhood of CDMX.
If you click on the Location below, you'll see Palacio Postal on a map. Happy 2019!
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