Currier Museum of Art - Rick Ayotte (aka Roland)

Rick Ayotte (aka Roland) does not have an image.

Rick Ayotte
20th - 21st Centuries Glass Artist
American, b. 1944
Paperweight artist Roland (Rick) Ayotte was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, in 1944. His artistic career began after he graduated from high school and became a glassworker apprentice at Macalaster Scientific Company in Nashua. There he met Paul Stankard, a notable paperweight artist, who introduced him to the art of making paperweights.

As Ayotte states on his website, “There was something pleasing and intimate about the spherical shape of paperweights that really appealed to me. It opened a lot of doors for me artistically.”

Ayotte draws inspiration from the natural environs around his studio in New Boston, New Hampshire. Interested from a young age in the natural world, Ayotte is a master at portraying animals, particularly birds and other wildlife, in glass. As he explains on his website, “My whole life I’ve had an enthusiasm for getting close to wild things. When you capture that special energy in a piece, it really comes to life.”

One of Ayotte’s first exhibitions took place at the Currier Museum of Art in 1993. Today Ayotte’s paperweights appear in collections across America, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corning Museum of Glass in New York, and the Smithsonian Institution.

References

Ayotte, Rick. Artist website: http://www.ayotteglassart.com/rickayotte.htm (accessed February 15, 2013).

“Portrait of a Paperweight Artist: Roland Ayotte.” Harvey Robinson Fine Glass Paperweights Newsletter (Spring 1987): 1.

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