Who Is Jeremiah Rippe and What Is He Doing?

His studio looks like a cross between a locker room and a livestock barn at a county fair. He built and designed it himself, with the help of assistants. It might well be the best facility of its kind in the East.

In these custom-made headquarters, Jim Rippe '69, a former History and Literature student, turns out his zany--but certainly not dismissable--structures of fired clay. They are not ceramics, and though they are hollow they can't really be called pottery. Rippe would like to resist calling them anything.

Whatever else they are, they are a product of his immense dedication and energy: Each piece takes at least 18 hours to construct and must be fired at least twice at differing temperatures for varying lengths of time. He has worked on his first 12 pieces (internal combustion machines) for three months, and is now presenting them for artistic criticism.

Opening today his show at Hilles will also feature a previously recorded guided tour. Supposedly based on the collected writings of Jeremiah Rippe, a 19th-century craftsman, these structures baffle and boggle the contemporary psyche. Part Peter Max and part Michael Valentine, they scorn traditional interpretation. They also seem crazy.

Rippe does not want his work to be taken lightly. Like the studio in which they were created, the pieces are a result of terrific determination and fairly lonely dedication.

As he himself states, "This stuff is not strictly humorous. Some of it has to do with what it feels like to be a craftsman in 1973 who feels like maybe it would have been more comfortable to be alive a hundred years ago."

Jim might think so, but Jeremiah probably disagrees.