Mary Bailey has never stopped inventing. Trained in Cleveland with fourteen years of all-girls-school discipline, she bolted toward freedom at Brown University, where she studied “everything” in search of a language that could match the contradictions of the world around her. She found it not in painting, but in building—first stretchers, then sculptures—and discovered that her true medium was wood, a material she could cut, shape, and coax into forms full of life and personality. Her process begins with play: a doodle, a curious line, a shape that seems to move on its own. From there she builds, experimenting with clay, foam, or directly in wood, constructing sculptures that are bold, eccentric, and impossible to ignore. In 1988, Bailey’s “Wild Life” series announced her arrival, followed by her “Totems” of the early ’90s—towering painted works that embodied her concerns about greed, patriotism, and the environment at the close of the Reagan era. Bailey’s creativity has never stayed in one lane. She has made videos, including The Surgery (1995), a tragicomic short in which her sculptures became characters on screen, winning awards and screening at festivals nationwide. She has written fiction and earned an MFA in Writing. She has raised a son (while still sculpting up until the day her arms couldn’t quite reach over her nine-month belly). Her practice has always returned to sculpture—free-standing, wall reliefs, light-based works, and, most recently, a series combining word and image to comment on a world that grows ever stranger. Collectors are drawn to Bailey’s work because each piece carries her unmistakable humor, wit, and energy. They are sculptures that don’t just sit quietly—they spark conversation, tell stories, and bring character into a space. To live with a Bailey is to live with a piece of art that has personality: bold, questioning, and full of imagination.