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.

Mary on the Bourbon Trail

As I have mentioned before, my hometown and its surrounding county is largely populated by Catholics whose families have been there forever and were also Catholic. This makes it prime Bathtub Mary spotting territory. Yesterday I led an expedition of fellow Bathtub Mary enthusiasts (my friends Matt and Tabitha and my boyfriend Brendan) on the windy, hilly roads of rural Nelson County to photograph the best Marys. I'd told Brendan before that a lot of the people who live on the road leading out to the Abbey of Gethsemane have religious statues in their yard, but he was surprised that almost everyone did. Considering the large numbers of statues, we were selective yesterday. The Mary statues we photographed had to be in a bathtub or some sort of grotto housing with the exception of the statues on this hill:

It was a serious Catholic shrine with ten or so different religious statues. I expected anti-abortion signs to accompany it, but there were none. Here are other pictures from the same hillside:
Mary and Joseph guarded the gates to this hillside, although there was no fence and thus no need for gatekeepers. I like the weathered patina look on Mary, Joseph, and the other unknown saintly-looking female statue. These would probably sell as kitschy relics for hundreds of dollars in an upscale boutique.

Our next stop was this house abandoned by its residents, and in front of it was a bathtub, abandoned by its Mary.

Behind the abandoned house was a house which looked to be more inhabited. Maybe Mary moved here:

A reverse color scheme Mary (Blue bathtub, solid white Mary) lives on the Nelson/Marion county line. She looked to be the most well maintained Mary we saw.

Matt posed for a picture by our county sign. He's pretending to drink from an empty bottle of the county's chief export, Jim Beam. Empty liquor bottles presumably thrown out of car windows are a common sight along this road. The last Mary I photographed was well-kept, but not really anything special.


So we had Mary-hunting success (and notice the gorgeous blue skies in the background of all the pictures!) I was worried that as we crept into yards and took these pictures, curious or angry residents would come out and tell us to get off their property. However, none of them even appeared to notice us. It was a Sunday, so maybe the good Catholics homeowners were at church. Expect more Nelson County posts soon as there are about a million more statues to photograph.