SHRAY

                            
Soulmates                                                                     Sanctuary                                                                          As One
 

               
      You and Me                                                      Variation of One                                                                 Harmony               
 

             
                A Gift                                                                                                              Venus Reclining                       
 

                                 
              Forevermore                                                              Beginnings                                                                 Thou Art Woman
         

                
                       A Kiss                                                                    Aphrodite      

Artist Bio

Sculpting in a unique and intuitive fashion, Shray creates vital sculpture with strong emotional impact. Her styles range from the contemporary to traditional, but each piece stirs feelings of deep sensitivity.

Shray was born in Virginia to an actor and an artist, then raised on a Colorado sheep farm before moving to San Francisco where she lived most her life. Named for her paternal great-grandmother, Shray has grown up honoring her Native American name, which means "morning sun" or "rising star".

Shray is gifted with a powerful combination of an artistic eye and a strong will, which she recognized early in life. In kindergarten she was brought before the principal because she chose not to color within the lines. "I've always been very opinionated," she says, "determined to do it my way. I never bothered to rock the boat, I just jumped ship."

At ten she created a newspaper, as well as a coloring book that she sent to a San Francisco publisher. At 15 she traveled to Paris with her mother where, inside the Louvre, she discovered "Winged Victory" cresting the marble staircase. "Right then," she says, "I knew I had to be a sculptor."

She graduated early from high school to attend the local junior college, then won a full scholarship to the San Francisco Academy of Art. Disenchanted by rigid adherence to sculptural techniques which fought her own style, Shray accepted a grant to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, only to find herself bobbing in a sea of "Conceptual" art.

She returned to the Academy of Art, whereupon she found her mentor, renowned artist Patrick Haberman, who set her up in a room and let her explore her own methods of sculpture. She developed her technique under his seasoned eye over the next two years. She uses the "subtractionist" method with clay, pulling the excess clay from the form she envisions, rather than creating an armature and building up the clay.

"The reason my pieces work without armature is because I use clay with enough integrity to support my figures, and because I always move with the clay, not against it. With the subtractionist method, I have to find the form and let it out - interpret the emotion, then release it. It's not illustration or a pose or a statement but rather, it's own identity."