Tom Rippon
Arts/Industry: Pottery, 1976
Tom Rippon helped redefined American ceramics, pushing the medium beyond expectations. His work is delicate, playful, and in a soft way, provocative. Rippon could be viewed as an anticlay, clay artist. The skin of his works resembles marzipan, and his forms are cartoon-like. Yet beyond the cheerful veneer, the work is grounded and informed.
Rippon’s sculptures are in the collections of many museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and Montana museums such as the Missoula Art Museum, the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, the Yellowstone Art Museum. Rippon taught at the School of Art at the University of Montana, Missoula for nineteen years, retiring in 2008.
