To best trace the thread of Carlyn Ray’s ascent through the Texas glassblowing scene, you must first consider the lowly silkworm.
At the ripe young age of 10, Ray raised the caterpillars in cardboard boxes in her Dallas home, fattening them up on mulberry leaves until they spun cocoons and began to pupate. It was at this point that the boxes were carted to her neighbor’s home, where the cocoons were boiled and unraveled before the fine silk was sent through a loom and weaved into unique works of art. “I would see the whole process, feeding the worms and watching them become this cocoon, then seeing how that thread becomes a tapestry, an everlasting piece of art.”
