Sarah Brown
Like many kids growing up in impoverished circumstances, Ray Maynard had to use his imagination and a little ingenuity to stay entertained.
The only things he played with were things he could make, like that “go-devil snow scooter.”
Starting with the stave of a barrel, he would attach a post and a seat, then slide down a snowy hill.
“That was my whole life. I couldn’t buy it; I had to build it,” Maynard said. “I was fending for myself. If I wanted something, I knew I had to do it myself.”
Maynard, retired from law enforcement at age 44 following heart bypass surgery, once again found himself creating things to stay entertained. Now, at age 80, he makes and sells “Ray’s Mini-Lusions,” a three-dimensional cutting that features two designs.
“When I retired, it was either sit down and die, or do something,” he said.
In 1985, after his bypass, Maynard started playing with a scroll saw. His first project was a detailed dome clock about 5 feet high and 2 feet wide. His daughter liked what she saw, and asked him to make her some dollhouse furniture.
So he made her some furniture. Then he made more. And more.
“I started doing the dollhouse furniture, and I was traveling. Then I started wholesaling to other dealers, and they would take it to England, Japan and everywhere else.”
After some time of this, Maynard got tired of dollhouse furniture, but had a new idea that originated from making the tiny table pedestals. That idea became the “mini-lusions,” as he likes to call them.
Ray’s Mini-Lusions are small blocks of wood a few inches high that feature a design on one side and a different design on the other side. For example, one side might be the design of a Sasquatch, and when turned 90 degrees, it might be trees, or perhaps the word “Oregon.”
He started selling his designs to retail stores, including Made in Oregon shops, about 10 years ago.
“Sasquatch is the most favorite. Made in Oregon has 30 different patterns they like.”
His home is filled with other creations he made for fun. Napkin holders, tiny boxes, seasoning racks, bird houses, cell phone stands, intarsia woodworking and fractal burning designs, personalized signs and other décor.
The hardest thing he probably has ever made, he said, is a walking stick for a quarter-inch scale dollhouse. It’s also the tiniest thing he’s ever made.
In his eight decades of life, Maynard has gone through a series of journeys to get him to this point, but it all stemmed from an inner determination to fend for himself.
“I was raised poorly back in Pennsylvania, out in the sticks. When I turned 17, I decided that was not me; I’m not a hillbilly.”
Since his father didn’t want him joining the military, Maynard found a loophole to get what he wanted.
“I talked him into letting me go into the National Guard, knowing full well that once he signed that paper, I was a free man.”
From there, Maynard spent six months in advanced infantry training, but then he learned that his life expectancy would be two or three minutes in combat.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound good.’ So then I went to the Air Force.”
He signed on as an aircraft mechanic, and spent a couple years in Libya. After he returned, he got into police work, driving a patrol car.
“I’d go out at the homicide scene and call all the experts in, and I said, ‘Wait a minute. I want to be the expert.'”
So he started attending FBI schools.
“I went to the fingerprint school and I went to bomb investigator school, and I went to every school they had out there.”
After five years in patrol, Maynard got into investigations.
“Then I had to rely on the fingerprint guys, so I thought, ‘Why don’t I do that?’ So I started doing fingerprint stuff.”
With all his experience, the state started calling on him to do some of the crime scenes at San Quentin.
“My phone was constantly ringing, and it put me in the hospital. It was a double bypass, so that ended my career.”
Maynard said that “woke him up.” He quit smoking and drinking, and started walking every day.
And he has been playing with wood ever since. Locally, his pieces can be found at Herring Auto Sales Center.