Oral history interview with Raymond Charles Pierotti
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 27 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Pierotti, Raymond Charles, 1932-
label: Interviewer
content: Herman, Lloyd E.
label: Creator
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
label: Names
content: Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts
label: Names
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
topic: label: Occupation
content: Arts administrators -- Washington (State) -- Seattle -- Interviews
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Pierotti, Raymond Charles, 1932-
label: Interviewer
content: Herman, Lloyd E.
label: Creator
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Raymond Charles Pierotti (1932- ) is a former director of the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Lloyd E. Herman (1936- ) is a curator and former director of the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery from Seattle, Washington.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 30 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2005 September 4
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.pierot05
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Raymond Charles Pierotti conducted 2005 September 4, by Lloyd Herman, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Herman's home, in Seattle, Washington.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Pierotti speaks of his childhood in Bountiful, Utah; his Italian grandfather, who made ornamental plaster casts in a barn near their home; his time in France as a Mormon missionary; his military service in Korea, which led him to Paris on the GI Bill, allowing him to take classes at La Sorbonne; his early years in New York, which included a job at Rizzoli's Books starting up their music department; his sale during that time of his first paintings, and the opening of a gallery on 34th and 2nd; his position working for Paul Smith at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts (now the Museum of Arts and Design); his initial involvement with the American Craft Council; his eventual acceptance of the executive director position at Arrowmont; the various improvements and changes he instituted while director of the school; his reasons for leaving Arrowmont; and his involvement with other craft schools and art centers, including the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences and the Sawtooth Center for Visual Art. Pierotti also recalls Don Wykoff, Marian G. Heard, Sandra J. Blain, Aileen Osborne Webb, Joan Mondale, Lucy Morgan, Mary Crovatt Hambidge, Verne Funk, Mark Peiser, Jim Wallace, and others.