About Raye

She's named after Ray Brook, New York, a village in the Adirondacks her family founded. She's East coast-based, with her immediate family on the West coast and her roots in the Midwest (Minneapolis).

She's never met a piece of pottery she hasn't admired or been inspired to recreate. She loves all abstract modernism with specific heart for de Kooning. She collects photos of missing shoes (she calls them “lost sole mates”). She survived an elephant stampede. She sailed in a wooden boat on the Mekong River for 3 days. She’s traveled to 21 countries. She knows every line to Home Alone 1 & 2 (you believe me, but does your Tommy gun?). She got a callback from the Disney Channel for a TV series when she was 11. She monitors airfares like good a Midwesterner monitors the weather.

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She took a year off from college and traveled. It seemed like a better idea than textbooks. She lived through nearly four months roughing it (hard) in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam with 17 trips to the hospital. She traded in the roughing months to spend three months studying French in Paris. It was her best year ever with the scars to prove it.​

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At 16 she founded a business for good apparel brand, called Rayebird, designing apparel pieces to create awareness of sex trafficking and help young girls and women get out of the life. Rayebird donated tens of thousands to support survivors of sex trafficking. 

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Raye has a BFA in Branding and Advertising, concentration in Copywriting from the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) She splits her time between the East Coast (NYC), the West Coast (Palm Springs) and the Midwest (Minneapolis) where she grew up.

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Currently, Raye is copywriter for FCB NY, and prior was copywriter and content creator for Dentsu NYC.

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At one point, Raye was a highly awarded emerging photographer, including garnering international recognition. Today, she's pulls that experience into her verbal stories and writing. But if you're curious: https://www.rayeebensteiner.com/