Lourinda Bray

Bray was raised in Pasadena and attended Mayfield School, Chateau Mont-Choisi in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Westridge School for Girls in Pasadena.^[12]

Bray was inspired by carousel animals from a young age, particularly when she saw the famous Griffith Park carousel when she was five.^[1][13] She liked to draw horses and wanted to ride live ones but was allergic, making being in their presence difficult. The next best approximation were carousel horses, which Bray rode whenever possible.^{[citation needed]}

Bray attended Tennessee-Wesleyan College,^[14] earning a bachelor's degree in painting. She attended Occidental College for graduate school,^[15] earning a master’s in Drama and Stage Craft, with a focus on set design and special effects for television,^[13] including light design.^[16]

In the late 1970s, Bray began purchasing carousel animals to restore with funds she had inherited and invested. Her first purchase was a figure from the Kiddieland Carousel at the Pomona Fair.^[1][13] A major restoration effort was undertaken when, after 14 years of working on it, Bray purchased the Santa's Village Carousel.^[13][1]

Bray founded her studio in the early 1980s.^[6] She amassed carousel figures of all kinds since then, from serpents, zebras, tigers, camels, and roosters, to dragons, witches, lions, peacocks, goats, and cats.^[9] Her oldest hand-carved animal was a tiger from 1875.^[13] Her holdings included pieces from the Knott's Berry Farm Lagoon Carousel; the estate of Swen Swenson, America's first collector of carousel pieces; the only known zebra carved by famous carousel carver Charles Carmel, and other curiosities.^{[citation needed]}

Bray's restored animals have been the subject of two major exhibitions at the Pasadena Museum of History in Pasadena, California:^[1] Flying Horses and Mythical Beasts: The Magical World of Carousels and Giddy Up: Children Take the Reins.^{[6][17][18][19][5][20]}