Excerpts from Rip’s most recent project, his autobiography:

I would like to share the events and experiences that have sculpted my life and formed the artist I am today. I reflect on my life and the different roads I have traveled. Its amazing now to me that all the different things I've experienced-from hunter, explorer, taxidermist to artist - Seemingly random paths have converged and have brought me to my destiny to be a sculptor. Some may find my quest for knowledge a little unconventional. Some may even find it repulsive. Nonetheless all of it has come together to form who I am. I will be authentic and whether you agree or not you will have an understanding of the heart of my work and where it comes from. It may sound to some like a contradiction that I love nature but take from it. My belief is that all life is sacred. So there is a sacrifice one makes for another: a gift is given, one life ceases so another will prosper. An insect dies for the bird to live, a bird dies for another and on and on it goes. There is nothing sad in it. It’s the design; the flesh is consumed and its energy gives life. Its spirit and memory remains and impacts mine. I can only be in a constant state of gratitude for the gift of life that sustains me. I’m placed with a great duty of responsibility to be humbly grateful and be a protector of this delicate balance. Not be greedy and take too much, that I protect the fragile and rare. Harvest only from the abundant. Whether I choose to sustain my life with plants, domestic animals or from the wild, I believe they are all valuable. They give that life to me as a gift. To honor it and respect it, I will need to understand it, study and learn from it. These are ancient beliefs that our native ancestors understood and this was the way of life I was taught and lived.