A wide-eyed little girl first saw glassblowing at a show in Wimberly, Texas when she was 6 years old. She decided right then that she wanted to be a glassblower. Throughout high school she studied art and explored different media in advanced-placement classes. She was accepted to William and Mary on a volleyball scholarship, but continued her study of art as a three-dimensional art major, adding a psychology minor.

Carolyn Ray was devoted, and even practiced flameworking glass on a torch in her off-campus house when she had time between weekend volleyball games, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and assisting with a children’s volleyball club.

She decided to study abroad in New Zealand during her junior year, in order to take advantage of a glassblowing program there. When she returned to the College, she was able to continue practicing with a studio owner at Jamestown. All of these experiences led her to the Penland School of American Craft in the mountains near Asheville, N.C.

It was there that Ray took glass classes and apprenticed for two years with a glass studio artist. Part of her apprenticeship included helping the glass artist sell his work to galleries and at art fairs, which gave Ray a new, flipped perspective of the glassblowing world she knew from childhood. Ray’s mother owns an American craft gallery in Dallas, so she had only experienced the gallery side of the art glass world.

“The glassblowers that had originally inspired me still knew me as ‘the little girl,’” Ray explained. “I loved being on the other side of the booth.”

During her time at Penland, Ray met and worked with a Czech glass master, Martin Janecky, who was the youngest glass master to come out of Europe. Ray served as his assistant and business person, traveling with him as he taught and demonstrated around the country for two years. Together, they went to Dale Chihuly’s Pilchuk Glass School in Washington State, where they got to work with one of the most famous American glassblowers, William Morris. Ray stayed there and worked while Pilchuk was in session.

“That job was primo because you can see what’s being taught and you get to blow glass on the weekends,” Ray said.

She was influenced and educated just by being in the presence of these glass masters from around the globe, each teaching different techniques involving flameworking, fusing, glassblowing and engraving, just to name a few.

At the end of the summer, Ray started a full-time position with Dale Chihuly in Seattle. Ray had first met Chihuly at the Dallas Museum of Art when she was 8 years old. He was signing her book, and when she told him she wanted to be a glassblower, he told her to come to Pilchuk when she was older. Ray followed through, and spent two years working with Chihuly and his team making glass work and chandelier pieces.

Then she received a call from her best friend who was working for the Corning Museum of Glass in Upstate New York. She informed Ray of an opportunity to work for the museum blowing glass on a Celebrity Cruise ship.

“I had always wanted to travel the world,” Ray beamed. “I knew that this would be a great opportunity.”

With Chihuly’s encouragement, Ray found herself on a cruise ship traveling the world and blowing glass. The Hot Glass Show made stops in the Mediterranean, Baltic and Caribbean seas; the ports included stops in Italy, Turkey, Greece, Russia, Portugal, Spain and other countries as well as in the Caribbean.

“Ship life is very interesting because you get to work with so many different nationalities,” she said. “There are different, nationally-themed parties each night, and many other opportunities to get to know different cultures, religions and ways of life.”

Though she enjoyed her two years on the cruise, she left the ship so she could start developing as an artist. Ray notes that becoming an artist can be pretty overwhelming, and takes a lot of patience and perseverance.

“You must open yourself up to speak through the materials you’re working with,” she said.

Ray has started her own business, Carlyn Ray Designs, and is currently focusing on site-specific installations. Currently, she is writing a proposal for a very large-scale window installation in Austin, Texas, as well as one for a high-end salon. Ray enjoys working with the client and designer, and bringing out the artist in the people she works with.

“Maybe they don’t consider themselves artistic, but I can create based on their feelings, attractions, or what they miss,” she said, citing the piece created after a client asked for something that would remind her of the waters of Florida.

Ray says that she would love to do some work for a children’s hospital, possibly working with the young patients to incorporate their designs for glass kites that would fly high in the ceiling of the foyer.

Space and energy in the atmosphere are other factors Ray must consider when taking on projects. She has to create something to “grow in that space” and establish a “nice energy” in the area. She also has to consider light, background texture, and color, all of which are uniquely altered by glass’ ability to change the atmosphere, and lighten or intensify the feeling of a room.

“Glass is such a beautiful material in itself,” she said. “Molten material has a life of its own — its own spirit.” Though Ray has always loved working with glass, she doesn’t want to limit herself, so she has started to incorporate other types of media as well.

Looking back, Ray can make some major connections between her work and her experience at William and Mary. Though many young, aspiring artists would have gone straight to art school, Ray knew she wanted a liberal arts education. She says it has helped broaden her vision, and that the classes she took taught her to question, reading into things, and really discover things on her own. Her senior year she took a lot of sociology classes, and had a professor who completely changed the way she thought, the way she approached subjects, and how she developed ideas — all things she says are “invaluable to me as a person.” In fact, her time at the College has inspired Ray to one day create a series of works involving some of her beliefs that she developed during her experience at William and Mary.

Another long-term goal of Ray’s is to create a center or community that incorporates lots of different artisans. Everyone could create a product with the mindset of trying to enlighten or better someone’s life or space. She adds that it could be anything — clay, food, metal — something that would change someone’s life like glass changed hers.

“I really like the feeling of those centers — like Penland, and would like to bring that down to the Texas area,” she says.

Though Ray’s work and her ideas are still developing, she knows one thing for sure: glass is in her future.

“I realize that it takes a while before you can really send messages through glass,” she says. But her creative voice is growing louder and more distinct.

Ray’s exhibits will be featured at the Orange Beach Festival of Art March 10 and 11. For more, visit obfoa.com.