Spirited Away

Between the vast expanse of sky and the vanishing horizon where it meets the earth lies magic—if you are open to see it.

For the past three decades, Furlong painter Rye Tippett has been creating worlds where landscapes are populated by the likes of ghostly sperm whales that soar in the air, spirit animals that lock eyes with the viewer, and war ships that hover supernaturally over expansive fields. Tippett’s art sits at the intersection of the familiar (think: the landscapes of N.C., Andrew, and Jamie Wyeth) and the mystical (Native American spirit animals), piquing viewers’ curiosity about what might exist beyond what their eyes can see.

When asked to describe his work, Tippett responds with a wry grin: “If Andrew Wyeth never became famous and had to make science fiction novel covers.”

Tippett conjures these images that stir the imagination in his sun-bathed studio on the top floor of a two-story barn that he and his brother, Sam, built from the garage on the property of Tippett’s home, the former Mozart Schoolhouse. He and wife, Michele Pulaski, bought the schoolhouse, which was built in 1818 and closed in 1954, in 2004. Pulaski, who is retired from her catering business and now focuses on gardening, keeps a floral design studio she calls Black House Flowers on the barn’s ground floor.

“I like to think of spirits being all around us, and the animals are symbols or totems of those spirits,” says Tippett, who notes he saw magic around him while growing up in Flemington. “For example, when I was a kid, there was a white horse in the woods. So, in the middle of the night, this big white horse would walk through the woods and come up and hang out with you.”

Tippett’s paintings give a nod to the Romantic movement of the 1800s, which delved into emotion, individualism, imagination, and the beauty and power of nature. When asked, in 2018, to provide an artist statement, Tippett wrote this: “I want the viewer to feel like they are inside the painting with the sun going down and the sound of the wind, or, feeling a bite of cold just before a storm, the beginning of night before the lanterns are lit and the children are called home, wanting to stay in the woods while the leaves fall, and needing to share what I saw. This is where I paint from.”

Inspiration originates from many sources—literature and history, machines and inventions, and the wonders of the natural world. “I have this thing about spirit animals,” Tippett says. “My dad would tell me stories about Native Americans, spirit animals, and how, after you die, you get to run with all the animals. My mother read a lot and had books everywhere.” He was particularly drawn to book illustrations from the 1950s and ’60s, especially those by the late John Schoenherr, a resident of the River Towns who illustrated the dust jacket art for Dune, the 1965 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert.

When Tippett has an idea for a painting, he starts with a thumbnail sketch, from which he references for the final work. When needed, he will also refer to photos—“I have tons of photos of birds,” he says—or uses real-life models, like dried flowers from Pulaski’s studio, or his cats Willy, Midge, Ripley, and Hazel.

Depending on the size and the subject matter, a painting can take Tippett twenty-five to more than forty hours to complete. “A painting with a lot of animals and foliage will take longer,” he says, “than one with just a ship in the sky.”

Tippett paints in oil on Medium Density Overlay panels, which are plywood panels with a resin fiber fused to the surface, often used for sign-making. “I like it because it has less bounce than canvas,” he says. His preferred size panel is thirty by forty-eight inches.

Tippett’s “non-orthodox palette” contains Payne’s Gray, Naples Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Prussian Blue, and Van Dyke Brown oil paints, which he applies with brushes. He sometimes uses a palette knife or the handle of his brush to add texture and nuance. He concentrates on the painting’s depth of field and how the light is filtered. “Renaissance artists like Albrecht Dürer mastered and popularized the technique,” he says. “I do a lot of tone glazes over the top of other colors to get the effect that I want. Once I get the image to a point where people can really understand what it is and there’s a feeling behind it, I can step away.”

Although he studied design at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, Tippett is largely self-taught. When his program at the Institute was cancelled, he left school to work at his father’s roofing company with Sam, who is also a painter, and honed his technique on his own. He left the roofing company in 2018 to become a full-time artist.

Having to sandwich his art-making into pockets of time outside of his roofing work honed Tippett’s approach. “Painting always had a sense of urgency,” he says. “I really needed the images to be seen and to be heard.”

Whales are a frequent motif. “After I read Melville’s Moby-Dick, I came up with this concept about how Ahab and Moby’s relationship could be reconciled after they’re both dead,” he says. “I used to have this idea for a children’s book where Moby and Ahab were friends, and Ahab was mad at Moby because he ate his leg and Moby apologized because he thought he was a donut. I elaborated off of that in paintings.”

Tippett’s work has sold for as much as $11,000. He has pieces in numerous private collections and he is represented by two galleries: Exhibit B in Souderton, Pennsylvania, and Morpeth Contemporary, in Hopewell, which will stage an exhibit of his work from June 6 to July 4.

“His paintings are at once realistic and surrealistic, earthly and haunting,” says gallerist Ruth Morpeth. “Large machines and animals hover over the horizon, reflecting both his regard for the natural world as well as human innovation, while small details draw you deep into the landscape: lit windows, ghost-like figures, winding paths. His first exhibition took place in 2018, and I still find myself just as excited to see what he creates next.”

Patti Zielinski previously was the executive editor of Art & Antiques magazine. She profiled James Dupree in the Winter issue of River Towns.

Rye Tippett also writes poetry, which on occasion corresponds with a painting. This poem is about his wife, Michele Pulaski, and her love of gardening at their home.

I saw her
Out in the garden
Cutting flowers for arrangements
Large men’s shorts
And big garden clogs
Surrounded
By the breathing
Green
Like a bird
In a Max Ernst
Painting
Fragile
And strange
Yet made of iron
Not of
This
Earth.