SLIDESHOW: Somerville Madonnas
Three years ago, a woman sold a grilled-cheese sandwich that contained the likeness of the Virgin Mary on eBay for $28,000. This past Ash Wednesday, the mother of God appeared before an awe-struck kitchen worker on a freshly scrubbed pizza pan. The faithful have claimed to see the Blessed Virgin in a pretzel (Rold Gold Honey Mustard, if you must know), chocolate drippings, a Chicago underpass, and a Milton Hospital window. But when public-defender-turned-amateur-photographer Josh Michtom set out to document sightings of the Madonna in Somerville, it had nothing to do with his personal beliefs. Michtom, who’s not religious, discovered that his oldest son napped best while sleeping in a moving stroller, so off they went on regular strolls around the neighborhood. And he soon noticed that Mary was everywhere. “I just thought it would be neat to take pictures. So I started carrying a digital camera and then at some point I thought, wow, you know, I knew Somerville was only four-square miles, and I thought maybe I could actually find all of them.”
Michtom, who is editor-at-large of Bostonist.com, found statues of the Lady tucked into homemade backyard shrines, surrounded by blooming flowers; abandoned in a driveway, paint peeling off her face; and resting in a corner of a house, an orange garden hose trailing above her head. Sometimes, instead of Mary, he’d discover Saint Christopher cradling baby Jesus, or Buddha. Michtom has captured 234 Madonnas since he began the project three years ago, and he isn’t done yet. In the meantime, he’s selling glossy prints, magnets, postcards, and a Somerville Madonna 2007 calendar on his Web site, somervillemadonnas.com. He’ll even hand deliver orders to local residents. “In Somerville, it’s very much part of the street environment. It’s almost background. If you’ve lived there a while you hardly think about it,” Michtom says. “But at some point, somebody really cared enough to put that stuff there, and it’s sort of an interesting juxtaposition of the earnest sentiment that truly went into it and the kind of forgotten background aspect that it takes on.”
“Somerville Madonnas: Photographs of Religious Iconography” | Paradise Lounge Gallery, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | May 24–July 20 (reception May 24, 6–8:30 pm) | 617.562.8814.
