Dr Sr Mary Glowrey captured in solid bronze
On 23 June 2021, we commemorate the birthday of Dr Sr Mary Glowrey (1887-1957). The Victorian born and educated medical doctor travelled to India in 1920 to become a religious Sister where she spent 37 years serving the most vulnerable. In 2013, Dr Sr Mary Glowrey was declared a Servant of God. Inspired by her story and supported by the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne artist Darien Pullen has created a number of small bronze maquettes of Mary Glowrey, with the hope of one-day creating a life-size statue in honour of this pioneering woman.
Darien researched Mary Glowrey and started "cobbling together" different ideas. He first made charcoal sketches, followed by a wax maquette. We can think of a maquette as a three-dimensional sketch. It could be made in clay or plasticine, but Darien chose to make it in wax. You can push the figure around into a different pose, you can get a twist or a lean, you can turn the head up or down; there’s a lot of freedom to move things around in a way that you don’t have if you’re making a large figure.
From what Darien knew about Mary and the time she spent in India as an obstetrician and gynaecologist, he was led to ideas for a depiction of a newborn baby and that state of wonder you have when you see your child just born and how tiny they are and what a special experience that is.
Darien has "an aversion to standard generic images" or "bland portraits" so when creating the maquette, he was looking for a way to make it personal and human, showing Mary’s connection with children, but also "different and interesting".
Capturing other symbols of Mary’s life in the maquette, Darien included both a cross and stethoscope around Mary’s neck, and the white, cotton habit of her order, the Society of Jesus Mary Joseph.
Dr Ballard at the ACU saw the potential of the maquette for the Catholic Women’s League and Mary Glowrey Museum in furthering the cause of Mary Glowrey. He commissioned Darien to make bronze maquettes with the aspiration that this would result at some stage in the development of a full-scale bronze statue of Mary Glowrey.
Each solid bronze maquette weighs around 7kg and stands 28cm high. The ACU has gifted one to the Catholic Women’s League of Victoria Wagga Wagga, previously known as the Catholic Women’s Social Guild of which Mary Glowrey was its first president in 1916, with the remainder going to the Mary Glowrey Museum.
Darien is "really happy with the whole image of Mary and the baby and the way it’s turned out". "I really enjoyed making it and hope it does come off as a full figure as I think it’d make a great sculpture."
www.maryglowreymuseum.info
Original material by Melbourne Catholic