While most families get together around the dinner table, Marty and Richard Ray spend their time together around their ceramic wheels.

The neighborhood couple has a ceramics studio in their backyard, where they spend about 20 hours a week creating pottery.

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“With Richard and I both working out here, it’s part of both of our lives,” Marty says.

Marty says her life has been art – drawing, painting and printmaking. She picked up ceramics in the early 1970s, when she taught art at Bryan Adams High School.

“As I got into it, I liked it more and more,” Marty says.

When she earned her masters in fine arts from SMU in ceramics in the early 1980s, she knew she needed a studio of her own even more than she needed a dining room table.

So she bought a metal trailer that had been used as an office for a Downtown parking lot. The trailer cost $800 and remains in her backyard for storage. She and Richard built a larger studio several years ago to house their growing interest in ceramics.

Ceramics is a complex art form, Marty says. The artist first creates a piece, then decides what to do with it – what design to put on it, how to glaze it and how to kiln it.

But Marty says she never runs out of ideas and normally has about three going at one time.

“They come from all over the place,” Marty says. “They come from whatever is going on in your mind.

“I see an artist as someone who has an inner desire to be creative and that desire drives them.”

The Ray’s pieces range in price from $20 to $800, depending on size and complexity. Their pottery and studio can be seen by appointment. For information, call 328-5934.

News & Notes

LAKEWOOD LIBRARY ART SHOW: The 30th annual Lakewood Library Art Show will be April 7-30. The show will feature neighborhood artists working in watercolor, oil and acrylic, photography, drawing and printmaking.

Judges will be David Gibson, a Dallas photographer; Danny Williams, a Dallas artist; and Murray Smither, an art consultant and former owner of Delahaunty Gallery.

The opening reception is April 7 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. The public is welcome. For information, call 670-1376.