Our Lady of the Front Yard

Happy Easter to everyone in the Easter-celebrating club! Posting pictures of yard shrines to Jesus' mother is an appropriate way to spend the day...right?

I've been looking for a new house recently, and in one of the neighborhoods I looked at, I noticed a ton of Mary statues. None were in bathtubs or grottoes, which was kind of disappointing, but I did get some beautiful spring pictures of Our Lady of the Front Yard.

I found this one in a cute little walking court in the highlands. Something about this picture reminds me of New Orleans, or Savannah, or somewhere further south than Louisville, but I'm not sure what it is.If you're going to have beautiful tulips, you have to have a Mary statue watching over them, 24/7.
I really liked how this one looked between the springy green bushes. The bright colors are very appropriate for Easter, I think.This is probably my favorite Mary that I photographed that day. I'd been meaning to get a picture of her for months. It's a nice, primitive display of appreciation for Mary. It's also kind of funny that she's partially buried in the ground....so no one will steal her?

Just as I was getting in my car to go home, I spotted Our Lady of Chain-Link.

Our Lady of Serenipity

Sometimes Mary just shows up when Mary wants to show up. I was pulling up in front of my friend's apartment near Bellarmine University the other day, when what in my rearview mirror did appear? A Bathtub Mary, of course.

I love the creative use of the galvanized metal washtub, and the flowers that are just starting to bloom in front of her.

I thought I might also add that I have now been searching for and photographing Bathtub Marys for about a year now. I can just hear the NPR interviews and documentary offers coming now.

Bathtub Mary goes Partying

Last Friday night, I went to the first party in a college neighborhood that I'd been to in a while. This seems like an unlikely beginning to a post in a blog about Bathtub Mary.

When I was ready to leave, two gentlemen (whose names I cannot remember) kindly walked me to my car, as this area can be sketchy in the dark. Since I had two guys with me, I decided to take the shortcut down the alley. Not a great idea, I know, but I guess good sense eluded me. However, the shortcut did lead me to this:

Yes, the picture quality is terrible, but I found a Bathtub Mary in Old Louisville. After a party. In a dark alley! She's everywhere!

The two guys walking with me probably thought I had partaken of too much party cheer when I excitedly pulled my camera out of my purse and stopped to photograph a lawn (ummm...alley) ornament. They probably thought I was crazy when I said I blog about those lawn ornaments. But oh well.

There might be some daytime alley pictures to come soon.

Mary near the University of Louisville

It's just been too damn cold for Mary spotting lately, and I've been in school finishing the seven year bachelor's degree. That said, I have found some interesting Mary sites on the way to school this semester.

This is outside of a church near UofL (University of Louisville....for those of you not lucky enough to be Kentuckians). It's a beautiful church, sort of spanish/mission-ish style. Notice that Mary seems way too small for her grotto. That's because of this:

This much taller Mary used to occupy the grotto, I assume. However, due to weather or vandalism, or some other unknown circumstance, she's lying headless on the ground next to her former grotto. (Is it sacreligious to take a picture of a headless Virgin Mary? If it is, I hope no representative from the Vatican shows up on my doorstep. It was just journalistic integrity on Bathtub Mary's behalf.)

Next I went to this hidden gem of a shrine to Mary, which I've posted about before, but had never actually seen...despite the fact that it's only a mile from my house.

This is a replica of the shrine in Lourdes, France. When it was built, it stood near a hospital. Now it stands between university apartments, and a gym used by UofL. I can just imagine college students hanging out in the grotto drinking bottles of Smirnoff and cans of Bud Light.

This is the Virgin Mary in the grotto, who appeared to this girl:

Her name is Bernadette (if my Catholic school education serves me correctly), she's kneeling on the floor of the grotto, looking up at Mary, and in my opinion, she looks just a bit too transfixed for her own good.

My last stop of the day was the Germantown neighborhood, one of my favorite neighborhoods in Louisville. I always figured that Germantown would be full of Bathtub Marys since there are several Catholic churches in the vicinity, and I assume that at one time, it had a sizeable devout Catholic population. This population, however must have moved and taken its' Bathtub Marys with it, because I found none. (Although I'll admit it, my search wasn't exactly exhaustive.) I did find this, though:

Someone spray painted their Mary gold, and who wouldn't want a golden Virgin Mary humbly protecting their house?

Mary in Baltimore

This is the latest in my "Bathtub Mary Travel" series. I found her in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore. It's a charming neighborhood of rowhouses and eclectic shops, and considering the love for kitsch there, I think Bathtub Mary fits in quite nicely.

I found this lovely little Mary in a Grotto figurine in the Hampden neighborhood, also. She was on the shelves of a store called Junque, which sells just that...but in the nicest possible way. They sell a lot of other vintage Catholic trinkets, and it made me want to start a museum of Catholic Ceramics.

I fell in love with the city of Baltimore on this trip, and I might be a resident Mary-spotter there one day.

How would Bathtub Mary vote?

On this fine election day, I have upheld my responsibilities as a good citizen by voting and as a good blogger by blogging. So here's the latest of Marys from my neighborhood:

So she's not in a grotto-like shell, but she's still pretty cool. She's one of the few Marys who looks to be about 13, the approximate age of the real Mary (according to my Catholic school education) when she had Jesus. Also notice the cool neon-yellow snake at her feet.

This picture is not the best representation, but this is a close to life-size Mary. With pink flamingoes behind her! I would find her presence almost imposing except for the flamingoes.

Ivy has grown around this Mary's stone grotto. There were several other cool religious statues in this yard, but I didn't linger too long, as I knew odd stares were going to come from the residents.

This is a new category I call Safari Mary. The picture isn't enlarged enough to show it here, but she has a look of bliss on her face. She's happy in the jungle.

So maybe for the next election, I'll make pseudo-political Bathtub Mary bumper stickers, such as "I own a Bathtub Mary-and I vote." or "When Bathtub Mary enthusiasts vote, (insert party here) win." They'll be as big as W.W.J.D. bracelets, I can feel it.

It's raining Bathtub Marys!

Now that it's finally nice, cold October weather, I can more thoroughly scour the Louisville Metro for Marys without the fear of being scorched to death by the Kentucky sunshine.

I found this Mary a while ago, when I first became interested in bathtub Marys. She lives in front of a house on one of the busiest streets in Louisville, in the midst of tattoo places and hipster bars. Maybe that's why she looks like she's hiding...she just wants a moment's peace. Or she wants to get away from the Jesus figure standing next to her. I couldn't get her face in this picture without going right into the yard. It had a fence around it, and I'm a little shy about these things.

I see this Mary every day on my way to school and ask her to help me have a good day. She fits in the category of "Mary on the Half-Shell" because of her little grotto has scalloped edges. I think she's one of my favorites.

On my walk to photograph these two Marys this afternoon, two magically appeared out of nowhere. (No, don't worry, I'm not going to be like that girl in Lourdes.) I was walking down a street I travel on every day, and I noticed two that I'd never seen before. Pictures of those come later. At the risk of sounding like a religious crazy, maybe she's calling to me.