It took a couple of interventions before Ray Bellew really got into metal sculpture.
The Tallassee resident knew the basics — after all he was a welder by trade.
“I was welding on the line all day every day, but I felt like I had another purpose,” Ray said. “I couldn’t put my finger on it so I just started praying about it.”
Cliff Williams / The Tribune Metal horses created by Ray Bellew are on display in downtown Wetumpka in front of Marcia Weber Art Objects.
A year later a visualization at work opened the door to creating works of art.
“It was like God showed me Jesus on the cross,” Ray said. “With the pieces I worked with, it just came as a vision. I made it right then. After I made that, everything just took off. I started making all sorts of things.”
It was 2007, but Ray couldn't construct his visions at work. He hadn’t met his wife Libby yet, but Ray said she “tells my story better.”
“He didn’t want to get fired for making stuff at work,” Libby said. “He wanted to do things at home but he didn’t have supplies. He had a pastor who came to him and said take a ride with him. He took him to a welding supply store and bought him everything he needed — welder, the whole nine yards.”
Ray started making the visions reality one weld at a time — at his own welding shop and not at work.
“He was putting them outside on the road where he lived,” Libby said. “It was a road not on the well beaten path. You would have had to have heard about him, lived close by or, by some chance, get off on that road.”
Ray sold a few pieces here and there.
“There were some people from Texas who stopped and bought an alligator,” Ray said. “They strapped it on the hood of their car.”
Then life got in the way and Ray stopped making his visualizations come to life in metal as he got sidetracked a little. Libby said Ray temporarily stopped following the path God had shown him.
“He had been through a rough time, a divorce and was drinking a little,” Libby said. “It was typical of people going through a hard time.”
Ray and Libby met in 2017 and started attending Living Waters Worship Center between Tallassee and Kent.
“God started showing us a lot of things,” Libby said. “We both got on the right path.”
Ray and Libby married and Libby encouraged Ray to follow the visions of creating metal sculpture.
“I had been wanting him to get his little welding shop pulled down to our house,” Libby said. “It was tucked away in another location. Once he went back and got back right with the Lord, the first piece he made was Jesus on the Cross. It’s in our yard.”
After Ray created the angel displayed at Restoration 49 in Tallassee, more life changes came.
“The want for alcohol was gone,” Ray said.
Ray started welding more and more in the small shop at the couple’s home. Then a drive opened more doors.
“We were out riding one Friday night and stopped by Red Hill Gallery,” Libby said. “They were having an art show. He had started taking a shovel and making a face out of it.”
Wetumpka artist Don Sawyer was setting up a show and wanted to see Ray’s work. Ray just happened to have an unfinished shovel in his truck.
“I would cut it and bend and try to make it look like a real face,” Ray said. “I had the face part built and the chin. It was like a rough draft.”
Sawyer purchased it and asked to see more. The Bellews showed Sawyer more of his work that night.
Sawyer introduced Ray to Marcia Weber in downtown Wetumpka. Now Ray's art adorns yards and living rooms across the country and can be seen in Tallassee and Wetumpka.
Ray has no formal art schooling or training and both Ray and Libby said his talent is God given.
“He can visualize something,” Libby said. “He will say I need to go to the shop and make something. He might get up early one morning and something is on his mind and he will go make it.”
Weber said Libby has called her concerned about how long Ray works sometimes.
“She said, ‘He has spent the last 14 hours in the shop,’” Weber said. “I told her to make sure he stays hydrated and has a few snacks. He visualizes things and wants to make sure to get his creations well underway before the vision leaves.”
Weber said it’s a trait of many of the folk artists she represents.
“They mostly have little formal art training,” Weber said. “It’s a God given talent.”
While metal has mostly straight edges and when put together can look rigid.
“A lot of his stuff has life to it,” Libby said. “He has created a fisherman pulling back on the pole and it bends — looks like it's in motion.”
Ray said he finds the metal used in all sorts of places and sometimes the visions come in the hunt for material.
“I’ll go to a scrap yard and look for it, some people give me stuff,” Ray said. “Where my grandaddy used to live there are old tools and stuff like tractors with valve covers. Any kind of metal I see I pick up. A few friends have mechanic shops. I’ll see something just laying there and it comes to me. It happens a lot.”
Ray now creates a lot at home, in between jobs with his lawn care business. The parts are starting to spread out a little at the Bellew home but Libby is OK with it.
“As long as he keeps it on the other side of the shop away from the house,” Libby said. “God has showed us too many things and done so much. It’s a God given talent. I know there is more, this is not it. We just haven’t gotten there yet.”
But Libby is not caught up on the growing success of Ray’s art. Ray is hopeful his metal art will go to new heights, but he won’t let it get him down if it doesn’t.
“Everyone wants big things to happen,” Ray said. “I’ll let God handle it. I’m not going to try to drive myself crazy.”
