Rebekah Raye
I am originally from Tennessee and moved to Maine in 1976. As a young child I loved watching my father, Ray Bradley, an artist and art director create beautiful drawings and paintings on paper. I decided at that young age I wanted to be an artist too. I also enjoyed going to the laboratory with my mother, Frankie Bradley, a bacteriologist, to see what she saw under the microscope. Science and Art became my favorite things.
I love animals and their relationship to us and to each other. The images I paint and sculpt come from experiences I’ve had right here in our backyard and in many areas of Maine. I am surrounded by woods and live beside an old granite quarry. A sheltered cove and the head of Blue Hill Bay is at our doorstep. I am visited regularly by deer, fox, crows, raccoons, and occasionally a bobcat, bear, hawk and owls and birds of all varied species. It doesn’t seem to matter where I am, the sight of an animal, near or far calls my attention. They are consistently in my dreams and daily thoughts. It is a celebration of their lives with us that I wish to interpret and share. I am compelled to paint them, sculpt them and love them.