Ray Pierotti featured in the Southwest Georgia Living Magazine
January / February 2025
By KK Snyder. Photos by David Parks Photography
A world-renowned artist is spending his golden years in the tiny town of Shallman.
In his 92 years, independent studio artist and composer Ray Pierotti has received well-deserved recognition and accolades from around the globe. His paintings hang in nearly 1,000 private, public and corporate art collections throughout the United States, South America, Europe and the Far East. He is catalogued in the Archives of American Art and listed in Who’s Who in International Art & Design. After all his worldly travels, he now lives and creates in the tiny town of Shellman, Georgia.
EARLY YEARS
His work and inspiration took Pierotti to all corners of the earth before he made his way to Southwest Georgia 14 years ago. A native of Utah, he joined the military during the Korean War and served in both Korea and Japan. He then made his way to France, where he studied languages at the prestigious Paris university, La Sorbonne and received an undergraduate degree. Following Paris, Pierotti returned to Utah and studied music composition, earning a bachelor’s and a master’s in music composition and musicology from the University of Utah.
Southwest Georgia student artwork, wins state, national recognition in River of Words competition
SHELLMAN – In an old Vidalia onion barn-turned-art-gallery, 55 works of art and poetry from southwest Georgia students sit on display.
The exhibit displays the works of local winners who participated in the Regional Georgia River of Words competition, an initiative of Georgia Project WET, whose mission is to bring water education to K-12 students around the world. The competition tries to connect “kids to their watersheds and imaginations through poetry and art.”
Four local students received National Finalist recognition: Snow Adams, a Bainbridge pre-kindergarten student; Ellie Jane Faircloth, a Whigham first-grade student; Arrow Adams, a Bainbridge first-grade student and Alessa Hobbs, a Thomasville fifth-grade student. Four local students had standout entries on the state level: Madilyn Davis, a Thomasville fifth-grader; Graciana Espinoza, a Leesburg sixth-grader; Phoenix Adams, a Bainbridge ninth-grader, and Mia Burnett, a Sale City 11th-grader.
“We’re excited, and we’re looking forward to doing this even more next year, giving the opportunity for the connection between the kids or experimenting and expressing themselves to an experienced artist,” Shawn O’Connor-Veazie, the community grant specialist at Golden Triangle RC&D, said.