The above collage, named here by me, is an early work, made for his good friend Frances X. Judging from the places depicted in the map fragment (Cherokee, the Great Smokies National Park) the work was made during or soon after his time at Black Mountain College. The two sets of color bars to the right of the figure certainly show aspects of Ray's time working with Josef Albers.

I love how the red highway line in the map morphs into the young man's collar bone. And the way a collage piece is hidden under the color bars.

An easy read, too easy, is that Ray has BMC in his heart (for that's where Black Mountain resides based on the placement of the map) and that Albers is both at his side and boxing him in. And that there are aspects of Ray's work that are hidden under his interest in color. You might say that this is a self-portrait of an artist as a young man. One of Ray's many disguised self-portraits