Mary's profile
Mary Molony is currently a second year MFA in Rinehart School of Sculpture at Maryland Institute College of Art. She attended East Tennessee State University for undergrad, studying painting, metalsmithing, sculpture, and printmaking. After receiving her BFA in sculpture and printmaking, she worked as a Veterinary Technician. The job had a major influence on her current work. Mary has been collecting bones from her parents farm in Southwest Virginia and using them in her sculptures.
Artist Statement
“They’re doing emergency surgery, you should probably head out.” said my sister. Driving from Baltimore to Tennessee at 8:30 the night before Thanksgiving, only seven and a half hours to go. Driving in darkness, dog by my side, delays inevitable on I-81. Just a year ago my mother underwent emergency surgery for a ruptured colon, only for doctors to find a tumor.
For two months previous to the emergency, I had been studying the relationship between my dog and myself. I was trying to figure out what is so important about this relationship between humans and animals? When I went home to my parent’s farm again for winter break, I collected as many bones as I could find. Most were partially buried, so I had to dig them out from the muck, rinse them off with a garden hose, dried them out, and eventually brushed them off. I fit them together like pieces from multiple puzzles into the trunk of my two door orange eclipse. Back in Baltimore I began covering a deer skull with beads. It was a process, one bead at a time. With each bead, I thought about my mother and her treatment regimens; taking chemo pills orally everyday, going every three weeks to be pumped with more chemo. The processes were long; you can only take one day at a time to recover.
In a time of loneliness, and guilt for not being able to help take care of my mother, I found security, loyalty, and a true companion in my dog. I came back to the connection between humans and animals and asked “what makes us so different when we ourselves are animals too?” In decorating these skulls, I felt it was a way of glorifying their life as much as we glorify a human’s life. While working with skulls, I was also considering the fragility of our bodies, and life itself.
As my mother’s treatment progressed along with her health, I have found positive correlations in my studio practice. Instead of memorializing these animals that once existed, I am creating a new creature activated in it’s own environment. Looking at the intricacies of what animals are made of, the bones are being rejuvenated into something new.
Artist Statement
“They’re doing emergency surgery, you should probably head out.” said my sister. Driving from Baltimore to Tennessee at 8:30 the night before Thanksgiving, only seven and a half hours to go. Driving in darkness, dog by my side, delays inevitable on I-81. Just a year ago my mother underwent emergency surgery for a ruptured colon, only for doctors to find a tumor.
For two months previous to the emergency, I had been studying the relationship between my dog and myself. I was trying to figure out what is so important about this relationship between humans and animals? When I went home to my parent’s farm again for winter break, I collected as many bones as I could find. Most were partially buried, so I had to dig them out from the muck, rinse them off with a garden hose, dried them out, and eventually brushed them off. I fit them together like pieces from multiple puzzles into the trunk of my two door orange eclipse. Back in Baltimore I began covering a deer skull with beads. It was a process, one bead at a time. With each bead, I thought about my mother and her treatment regimens; taking chemo pills orally everyday, going every three weeks to be pumped with more chemo. The processes were long; you can only take one day at a time to recover.
In a time of loneliness, and guilt for not being able to help take care of my mother, I found security, loyalty, and a true companion in my dog. I came back to the connection between humans and animals and asked “what makes us so different when we ourselves are animals too?” In decorating these skulls, I felt it was a way of glorifying their life as much as we glorify a human’s life. While working with skulls, I was also considering the fragility of our bodies, and life itself.
As my mother’s treatment progressed along with her health, I have found positive correlations in my studio practice. Instead of memorializing these animals that once existed, I am creating a new creature activated in it’s own environment. Looking at the intricacies of what animals are made of, the bones are being rejuvenated into something new.
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