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Mailboxes Are People Too: Video installation in PERSONALLY PUBLIC: The personal, interpersonal and intimate face of public art While collaging faces from pop culture onto utility poles in 2003, I began to notice blue USPS mailboxes. They were ubiquitous, scarred and overlooked or at least not talked about or publicly appreciated. Like the poles, they had a human stature, though shorter, fatter and somehow older, like friendly little old men or blue Oompa-Loompas. I thought how they must feel kind of cold and lonely standing out there all the time, poised to serve, to open their mouths so they can receive and protect your tax form or valentine. I found myself greeting them and patting them on their heads when I walked by. In the street performances and subsequent video (a collaboration with Martin Ballew), I become the persona who gives the mailboxes human affection for passersby to see and share.
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