Baltimore artist Juliet Ames has taken a very Baltimore thing and made it even more Baltimore.
Every winter in the city, wooden boxes sometimes stenciled with the words "SALT BOX" magically appear across the city in anticipation of winter weather.
Ames says she got tired of seeing the boxes look sad, especially ones that didn't even have the words painted on them. So, being an artist, she did something about it.
Ames tweeted a photo of the first box she painted, saying it was vandalized to avoid getting into trouble. But someone from the Department of Transportation messaged her and "told her that we loved the salt boxes and that we looked forward to seeing more as long as they have a salt theme or highlight something special in the surrounding neighborhood."
So with that, a thing was born.
Ames has since decorated dozens of boxes across Baltimore, keeping (mostly) with Baltimore-related themes. There's an Edgar Allen Poe box, an Utz potato chip box, a Divine from Hairspray box, a Natty Boh box, and of course, an Old Bay box.