Laura Ray is a woman who inspires us for many reasons: her light, her energy, her contagious joy... and her generosity in sharing that, like everyone, sometimes we run away, sometimes we search, we get lost; and others, for reasons that we cannot explain (because they were there and we did not see them), we found. We tell you in her own words, a very intimate brief story about how she managed to build her own world.
Laura Ray is a multifaceted Spanish artist based in Morocco, who has been experimenting in different creative fields such as textile graphic design, traditional painting and experimental painting on surfboards (a sport that she is passionate about), until reaching interior design, her current occupation. Laura is a brave and tender woman at the same time; And in her travels, because she is a great traveler, her main objective has been to set a destination for her dream paradises.
Laura's relationship with Victoria is very close and endearing, they have known each other for many years, and they have shared and admired each other's creative work. One of Laura's magnificent pictorial works hangs in Victoria's house, and Laura accompanies the light and expressiveness that she transmits, with jewelry designed by Victoria.
Run away from yourself
My name is Laura, I am 35 years old and I have been living in Morocco for 7 years. I came here as a designer to work for a fashion brand and after 4 years full-time and running out of ideas and with a lot of anxiety that literally wouldn't let me breathe, I decided to stop and look for my own dream. I didn't want to spend my life working in an office to earn money and be able to live 15 days in paradise, I wanted to live in paradise.
I have thought so many times what Morocco has meant to me, it was a change, not only of the country, it was opening a door to a new world within me.
I realized that I left Madrid fleeing. She hated everything about it, what it represented. She was bored with people, with plans, with the same places over and over again, with that cold of 8 in the morning in winter and the unbearable heat of summer. I fled Madrid and I was not aware of it.
Coming to Morocco meant a liberation, creating a new world, MY WORLD, not the one I believed had been imposed on me.
Morocco is intense, in every sense, its smells, its people, its hospitality, its landscapes, here I have laughed, I have cried, I have loved and I have hated; and all those experiences made me understand that there was something that was not working within me. WHERE IS MY PARADISE? I left my job and started working as a freelancer for different companies while I achieved my dream of being able to dedicate myself to painting. The plan was perfect and in my head I was clear about what I wanted to do and what my life would be like from now on. Fate put it before me and allowed me to live it to understand that I didn't want that either. But life is not like in the movies in which this part happens in fast motion. Nobody explains to you that to heal you will have to go up and down so many times, that you will have to ask yourself questions that you will not even know how to answer and that, to find yourself, you will have to remove all those layers that you were putting on so as not to see yourself.
I have fallen so many times that I lost count, I got tired of everything, everyone and even myself, but all those times, I got back up. I understood that life is chaos and that happiness is not understood without sadness and that no matter how much it hurts, now I say thank you. Thanks to this country, thanks to all the people I have met, thanks to all those experiences and thanks to understanding that I was not really fleeing Madrid, I was fleeing from myself.
Interior design, a world of inner peace
I did a thousand projects, I tried my perfect idyllic artist plan with her home studio a thousand times and I tried all, ALL the things I wanted to do, but had never had time for.
My decision to make a career change occurred during the three months of confinement alone in my house in Morocco. A client asked me to design a showroom and that's where it all started. My new creative decoration project is called Alma Concept Studio.
Interior design was always there, it has always been so present in my life that I did not give it importance, it was something so mine that I did not value it. Create spaces that transmit emotions, create experiences and life scenarios. We cannot change difficult moments, however, we can change what surrounds us, making the scene make us smile with relief when we get home, finding a moment of peace.
Life is passion, I don't understand work, or love, or friendship, or experiences if there is no passion involved. I hope that this little piece of me can inspire someone and help them make decisions that we don't dare, or to take the step of healing wounds that will continue to be there no matter how much you put a band-aid on them so you don't see them. I hope that all those women who have helped me on this path continue to be present in my life.
What inspires me about Victoria de la Calva's Jewelry?
The Jewels of Victoria de la Calva are like those creative and luminous scenarios that I seek to create. Details and pieces of yourself that accompany you every day, that remind you, like little winks, of the path you have taken, the experiences you have had, the world you have been creating, with which you identify and which seem in tune with you. same.