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Arts & Entertainment

The Artistic Secret of Edmonds' Most Popular Mailman

When he's not on his regularly scheduled route, Brad Robinson can be found in his shop creating works of art. He now has some pieces on display at Semantics Art Gallery.

Everyone’s got a story.

The bank teller. Your favorite barista. The hordes streaming off the ferry each day. Dig a little deeper, get beyond the familiar greetings, and you’ll unearth hidden talents, special dreams, secret goals.

Meet Edmonds mailman Brad Robinson.

If you work or live downtown, in Emerald Hills, or on Olympic View Drive, you’ve seen him. He putts around in a U.S. Postal Service jeep. He parks. Delivers the goods. He’s defined as “the mailman” to most, a familiar and comfortable sight. But delivering the mail is just a job for Robinson, one he’s done well for 16 years. Rain or shine, of course.

For Robinson is more than just the friendliest letter carrier in Edmonds. He creates art formed from metal and wood, but doesn’t call himself an artist. He prefers “craftsman.”

Robinson’s metal sculptures are currently on display and for sale at on Fourth Avenue North. There, in the art-filled lobby, you sense the whimsiness of Robinson’s current works in some unforgettable tables. One springs up from a brake pad, secured by a jointer plane. The other is held down by a forty-pound gear and supported by a sharp lawnmower blade. Both pieces are topped with a number of tools and other found items welded together to create the tables, which are covered by glass.

Outside, in the gallery’s patio, you can see a couple of Robinson’s fish mobiles, as well as singular pieces hanging from a wall depicting jagged salmon shapes cut from steel.

“My dad is a woodworker,” says Robinson, 44, an Edmonds native who graduated from Meadowdale High School in 1984. “When wood shop came around in high school, it was easy for me. Woodworking is now a big hobby for me. I just love the smells, the tools.”

Five years ago, Robinson—who spent seven years in the Navy—took advantage of his GI Bill and attended night school at Everett Community College, majoring in welding. He soon became enamored with metal, as well as wood.

“I really like working with metal,” he said. “How it changes when you work with it, the whole process of grinding and finishing a piece.”

It wasn’t long before Robinson, who builds wood cabinets, tables, entertainment centers and other furniture pieces in his home shop, began dotting his Lynnwood home and yard with his metal pieces.

“I have a very patient wife,” said Robinson. Her name is Else, and they have two kids: Erik, 17, who attends Meadowdale High, and Emily, 13, a student at Meadowdale Middle School.

Robinson assembles the majority of his art from recycled material, remnants of a neighbor’s old fence, forgotten tools and even a discarded water heater.

Here, for example, are just a few of the everyday items you will find in Robinson’s tables at Semantics Art Gallery: a jack from a Model-T, timing chain, a buckle from a horse bridle, bike sprocket, bolts, sockets, screws, nails, rulers and even horseshoes. Most of the tools are antiques.

All of Robinson’s artwork have one thing in common.

“It’s not like high school, where you have to sketch everything out,” he said. “I can see a finished project in my head.”

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For more information on Brad Robinson and his art, go to his webpage.

Semantics Art Gallery is at 110 Fourth Ave. N, Edmonds. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Closed Tuesdays. For more information, call 425-776-3176.

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