DEPTH OF FEELING

Shray's sculptures capture moments and timeless emotions in bronze
by Charlotte Berney

Shray's sculptures have a direct line to the heart. Standing before one of her works, whether of man and woman, woman and child, or woman on the Trail of Tears, the viewer is connected not only with a beautiful object, but with an experience.

The bronze sculptures Shray creates evoke strong emotional reactions from those who see them. "I have gone to openings where people tell me they are moved by the works, and sometimes they cry," says the artist. "I am so honored and awed by this. The work is really personal for me, and I put a lot of myself into it."

Yet Shray is quick to point out that she doesn't work with "explicit emotion." Rather, she says, "I try to capture a moment and a quality of pure beauty. I don't tell the viewers what to feel. I let them finish the story."

The works combine a sense of grace with passion and power. There is a strong sense of universality about the figures, yet they invite personal identification. Her work has a maturity that is unusual in an artist who still has a long career ahead of her.

Shray, who uses one name only, has a rich background upon which to draw for her art. She is named after her great grandmother, who was Cherokee, and she grew up knowing that her name meaning "morning star" or "rising star" was a complete name. Her other heritage is Scottish, and she feels reverence for all of her ancestors. She was raised with a respect for nature and for heritage.

As a child growing up in San Francisco, Shray went often to the Palace of the Legion of Honor with her art-loving parents, where she saw the museum's extensive collection of sculptures by Rodin. These had a profound effect on her. Later, at age 15, when she saw the Winged Victory in the Louvre in Paris, she knew that she wanted to be a sculptor. She says of that work, "It was the most perfect combination of beauty, balance, and nature I had seen."

Leaving high school early to attend the San Francisco Academy of Art and the San Francisco Art Institute, Shray focused primarily on the human form, studying anatomy, figure drawing, and color. Her early sculpture employed color elements, and today she expresses her love of color in her patinas.

Shray embraced the process of bronze early in her career and considers it "an amazing medium," difficult but rewarding. The steps she takes to reach the final form are complex and her methods unusual. She begins with a large bock of clay and forms it using a subtractionist method, without armatures. "Very few clay sculptors work this way," she says. She sees lines and shadows in the block and begins to work directly into the clay without having a preconceived idea. "It's rather like seeing forms in clouds. I wasn't taught this in school, but I feel freer this way," she laughs.

"My figures come from years of watching people," she says. "There's incredible energy when I find the form in the clay. The work gains a presence, a life of its own." She rarely adds any clay back to figure and does not rework so as not to lose the spontaneity.

The piece then goes through a complex 12-step process from the mold all the way tothe final pouring of the bronze. "Not many people realize all it takes to create a bronze," says the artist. "The foundry is extremely important, and I spend a lot of time at mine, the Artworks Foundry in Berkeley. I'm in control of my work and consider each work one of a kind its own entity." At the same time, she say, "I have great respect for those at the foundry who work on my pieces." The finished work takes from six months to a year from clay to bronze.

Shray considers working in bronze "a huge commitment and very demanding,"because of its permanence and its long use throughout art history.

Her finished work often evokes the spirit of Rodin. "He had an ability to capture that second of movement and emotion," says Shray, and that is her goal as well. Some of her works have a more abstract quality while some capture the human form in greater detail. In her moving work "Ancient Tears," she honors her great grandmother and the Cherokee people who walked the Trail of Tears on which 4,000 people perished. "She has a twist in her waist to show the twist in her heart," says Shray. "Part of her is looking behind so the memories won't be lost." Her intentions in making the piece were "to explore the emotions and to forgive."

Like Rodin, Shray encourages people to touch her works, believing that "until you touch a sculpture, you don't really know the piece."

Today, Shray has a home in San Rafael in Marin County, California, where she enjoys a view of beautiful Mount Tamalpais. Her husband Neal, a scholar and historian, is a "constant source of help and moral support." Shray's temperament is positive and cheerful, and she expresses herself openly and straightforwardly, all qualities that are reflected in her work.

Shray's sculpture is constantly evolving. She expects that in the future, "my work will be totally different. I want to explore continually. As life experiences come to me, I want to capture them and to express myself."

She sums up her feelings about what she does, saying, "My work is such a joy, such a gift." Her powerful work is truly a gift to the spirit.