Mary of Egypt was one of the first figures I decided upon while researching which stories I should include in my project. I was drawn to her for a few reasons, first I was very intrigued by the different depictions of her with top surgery scars, or no breasts and I wanted to learn more about medieval mastectomies and gender. Along with that, her story has been rewritten and changed multiple times, either to make her a worse figure, or to hide the harm done to her at the hands of men. These are two of the biggest reasons I chose her, I wanted to highlight her, her stories and her depictions in manuscripts as a figure whose gender has been masculinized and changed and what our contemporary response to that might be.

When deciding my composition for this piece I wanted to look at classical depictions of the Virgin Mary, and play off of those. I wanted Mary of Egypt to be seen as the loving and loyal Saint that she is. For my border details I wanted to highlight her sexual history, while not making that the focus of the piece. The figs, weasels, roses, honey and pomegranate seeds are all medieval sex symbols. The leather cutting tools in the corners are believed to be a tool used in medieval mastectomies.

Mary is the Saint of penance and sexual sin, and I wanted to depict her holding the queer community beneath her robes, protecting and sheltering them.