An accidental adventure (My BT ArtBox hunt in the summer of 2012)

In front of St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, London

A few weeks ago, back in June, I was in Covent Garden, early one Saturday morning before a meeting.  I saw this pair of traditional red phone boxes*.  And then…

I saw this!

T for Telephone designed by David Mach

I whipped out my phone, (a humble Motorola Rzr8) and just like the few early bird tourists were doing, I took a photograph of it.  The pterodactyl type creature fizzed in the morning sunlight.

“That’s rather fun”, I thought casually strolling on to the Central Avenue.

Padded Cell designed by Bert Gilbert

And as I noticed this next one I thought, “but what is going on?”  I stole another shot feeling like I’d caught someone still in bed.  Were they part of the art too?

I noticed a few more which sparkled in the morning sunshine before heading off to my meeting.  And I thought no more about them beyond looking forward to sharing my photos on fb that evening.

What you may or may not know about me is that I’m not a collector.  I love taking photos, often whilst out and about on the street.  But I’ve never been tempted to collect a set of pictures based on one  same object. I vaguely considered tracking down some of the cute elephant statues that appeared a few years ago.  But it was only a vague notion that I never pursued.  So how did I end up tracking down nearly 80 replica phone boxes, decorated by various artists?  The following 35 posts tell that story in a mix of slideshows and anecdotes.

The next post is a slide show of the designs I found that morning.

* for those that like collecting data.  The red phone box used as the basis for this exhibition was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, and is called the K6, as seen in the photo above.