On the surface, local artist Dixie Friend Gay's day begins as typical as that of any other working mother with a home office.

She awakens around 5:30 a.m. to get her 10-year-old daughter, Garland, ready for carpool. Gay then exercises either at the gym or by running with the family dog, and then heads straight to work.

But Gay's office -- and the rest of her day -- is far from typical.

Those who pass Gay's home/artist's studio in the Heights aren't instantly privy to the artistic explosion that lies behind the front door.

But once inside, visitors enter another world -- where art and family coexist, and from where Gay creates pieces that can be

seen hanging on the walls of private collectors or permanently on display in prominent public spaces.

Gay's success didn't happen overnight. A career as an artist requires hard work, strong networking skills and, of course, talent – all aspects Gay has honed over the course of her career.

And nothing she has achieved has been by accident. "I had a vision of what I wanted, and I'm continuing to try and reach it," Gay says. "I'm optimistic. What I do now is put work out there to a lot more places than it gets accepted. If everybody accepted my proposals, I wouldn't be able to do it all."

From a massive mosaic piece at George Bush Intercontinental Airport to eight paintings commissioned for Houston's new Federal Reserve Bank building and another project installed at Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, a

common thread rings throughout& Gay's work.

The natural world is reflected in her art, which makes sense coming
from a native Oklahoman raised on a cattle ranch 30 miles from the nearest city.

"She is so attuned to nature," says Gay's husband, Ron. "Nature is just spiritual. You get going out in nature and it's more spiritual than anywhere else. Growing up on a ranch and seeing the things that happen there -- that's what did that."

In addition to existing projects, Gay has two other massive public undertakings in the works, including mosaics for a terminal in the Dante B. Fascell Port of Miami and in the Indianapolis International Airport.

Although Gay would not disclose her annual earnings, saying her income varies widely from year to year, she is willing to discuss the price of her artwork.

For example, the retail price of a six-foot by nine-foot painting (pictured on Page 2) is $20,000. Her smallest pieces -- which include paintings, prints and etchings, start at $2,000.

The Miami port project Gay is currently working on has a budget of $350,000, while the Houston airport project had a $250,000 budget. Gay says that on a large public project, a considerable amount of the budget goes to pay subcontractors.

When Gay works as a consultant, she says her fee is comparable to an attorney or an architect.

FROM THE OUTSIDE IN

Gay was born into a Mennonite family that discouraged her from going to college, which she did anyway at Northwestern Oklahoma State.

"We learned to do everything ourselves," Gay says of her childhood. "If there was a plumbing issue, we

took care of it. As a kid I had chores, feeding calves and chickens and gathering eggs. We just did everything -- we churned our own butter. It was very rural and I don't think we knew we were poor because everybody else was in the same place."

But Gay's dreams for her future didn't include life on a farm. "I wanted to do art, and my Barbie doll lived in New York City in a high-rise," she says.

After high school, Gay married Ron, her childhood sweetheart, a common occurrence for girls in rural Oklahoma.
Even when they were children, Ron Gay says his wife was unique.

"She was totally different than anyone else there," he says of the small Oklahoma town where the pair grew up. "She was driven to do things, and art was a big part of who she was."

With no formal art training, Gay entered college as a math major, quickly switching gears.

After graduation, she unhappily taught art for three years (two of those years were spent teaching American Indians), but longed for the freedom and time to work on her own projects and a way out of small-town Oklahoma.

When Ron entered the U.S. Navy, the young couple moved all over the
country, making their home in places including Florida, Pennsylvania and, finally, New Jersey -- an hour and a half from the New York that Gay had dreamed of as a girl. "We had a house on the Jersey shore," Ron says. "And she told me when I got home one day that she had rented out our house and made arrangements for an apartment in New York."

The couple eventually moved into a sublet on Ninth Street between Broadway and University. In New York, Gay was finally exposed to the
world she had longed to be a part of. Her art -- which primarily consisted of drawings at this point -- received acclaim and a solo show at the famed Alan Stone Gallery.

But Gay wasn't satisfied. She wanted to paint, not just draw. So she entered graduate school at New York University. For Gay, who by then was a mother to the couple's first child, Hagen -- now a 19-year-old college

student -- entering graduate school was a challenge.

On top of that, learning to paint proved difficult for Gay.

"When I say that learning to paint was the hardest thing I ever did -- it was so painful," she says.

Gay had experienced success with her drawings -- which had been written about in magazines -- but painting was a completely different story.

"(When) I started trying to paint, I would do the ugliest things, and I
kept saying, 'I want to learn how to make the surface crack.' And (the teachers would) say, 'Learn to paint first.'"

So she did.

When Ron was accepted into the Baylor College of Medicine in the
late-1980s, Gay moved to Houston -- and her painting flourished.

From there, she hasn't looked back.

WORK OF ART

Victoria Lightman, chairwoman of the Texas Commission on the Arts, says public projects -- those that are funded through government money and grants for public spaces -- require a certain type of professionalism that Gay has mastered.

"Dixie is a very savvy businesswoman," says Lightman, who is also the co-founder of Looking At Art, a local organization funded by class fees where enrollees visit artist's studios, galleries, alternative spaces, museums and collector's homes.

Lightman says it is one thing to work in a studio, but it is another thing entirely to imagine putting something in a building that's not even built yet, a task which Gay has undertaken many times.

"You're dealing not just with studio assistants but also having to deal with architects, builders and security, all the things that are part of public art projects," says Lightman, who met Gay 17 years ago when Gay first moved to Houston from New York.

Lightman points out that most young artists don't have the type of guidance that's needed to create a

sustainable long-term career. Artists may sell a few pieces early on, but proving profitable over the long-term is rare.

"They don't know how to go from running the 10K to a marathon," she says. Gay is one of those exceptions. "She is very focused. She had a career plan, and she's worked at it in a very logical manner," Lightman says. "I think she's probably getting where she planned to be in her life."

Gay says the accessibility and affordability of Houston has proved vital in her professional success.

"We (artists) take ourselves seriously, but we don't act seriously," she says. "In New York, space is such a premium. I think here you can make your own rules, and it's been a lot easier for me."

Having studio space within her home has been important to Gay's work and rewarding to her family.

"It's exciting and great for our kids," Ron Gay says. "It brings a whole new perspective into our lives than if she had a normal job and came home and distanced herself from the job. This way, we always have friends and people coming over. There is never a dull moment."

A tour around Gay's sprawling studio in the Heights reveals pieces from different eras in her development as an artist. In one corner of her workshop sit 17 life-sized fiberglass figures wrapped in white gauze -- a haunting piece of art that traveled around the country post-Sept. 11.

On the other end of the same studio sit her weight bench and dumbbells, an example of the meshing of Gay's personal and work lives. Gay and her husband purchased land in The Heights several years ago and eventually bought an adjacent lot before the neighborhood became a hot commodity, allowing them to build their dream home and studio.

"I feel really lucky," Gay says. "I'm doing what I love to do, and people are supporting my vision by buying my work and hiring me to do projects."