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Letter-eating monster hits Leeds shopping centre
Marianne Springham.
Would you trust a red tartan creature with your letters?
One anxious pedestrian wasn’t too sure about letting it eat his mail when he came across the brightly-coloured custom-made “plushie” made by Marianne Springham.
The artist, who fashions her cuddly creations at Beaver Works studio, in Hunslet, Leeds, came up with the idea of making a letter box monster.
Instead of pushing their mail into a plain slot, people can post their letters through the monster’s mouth.
Marianne spent several months making it, then fitted it to a postbox on the ring road near the Owlcotes Centre, Pudsey.
She said: “It has been hilarious watching people’s reactions. Someone wanted to post some letters and he wasn’t sure whether he could post them or not.
“I like the double take: for people to walk past something they see every day and for it to look completely different.
“It is good to see people smile.”
The mum-of-two, who runs the community department at Leeds College of Art, said it took her four months to make the monster as she had to fit it in around her day job and looking after her children, aged two and seven.
Over the past few years, the 38-year-old has spent her spare time making a collection of strange creatures and photographing them at locations across Leeds and Bradford.
Three plush monkeys were photographed taking a bus trip around Leeds, while Sam ‘N’ Ella, two large plushies who take their names from the nasty salmonella bacteria, were snapped eating eggs on toast in cafes around Leeds.
“Plushies” are basically artists’ versions of cuddly toys.
Marianne graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 1996 and won the Artsmix Emerging Artist Award in 2008.
She said: “For me, it’s not about putting work in a gallery that no-one understands.”
She added: “I think it’s about making people laugh and anyone can enjoy it.”
She plans to continue making her fluffy friends and photographing them in weird and wonderful places for another couple of years, until she has enough photos to put together a book featuring their adventures.
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