Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Murray studied at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, receiving her bachelor of fine arts in 1969 and a Masters of Fine Arts in 1971.
She taught at Oklahoma State University beginning in 1971; in 1986 she took a position at Arizona State University,[1] where she oversees one of the largest programs in the country dedicated to watercolor and other water-based media.
[2] She has collaborated with the ASU Library Map and Geospatial Hub to facilitate the student exhibition series, Creative Cartography.
[3] Murray married Lonnie Dean Meissinger in 1975, and the couple's son, Logan Don, was born in 1979; his toys have often served as subjects for his mother's work.
[1] She has also created larger-scale installation pieces, such as Deluge, memorializing the 1966 flood of the Arno.