Bronze Priestess

Bronze Priestess by Elza Mayhew

Photo: Morgan Price

Date: 1987
Size: H: 38” x W: 54” x D: 20”
Casts: 1
Form: Priestess
Material: Bronze

Commissioned by the University of Victoria and cast at Jack Harman Sculpture Foundry, Vancouver. Installed on the UVic campus in 1988, located across the quad from Coast Spirit. Bronze Priestess was an enlargement of the Black Priestess, purchased through the President’s acquisition fund, to mark the 25th anniversary of the university.

The last piece made by Mayhew, she required considerable assistance because, unknown as yet to her family, she was in the beginning stages of a dementia featuring spatial disorientation, caused by styrene toxins in her styrofoam molds, a method of casting that she pioneered.