Those who participated Sunday afternoon in a cruise to Fishers Island protesting the Navy's dumping of contaminated material from Connecticut into Long Island Sound saw why the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and others consider it a local issue.

From Montauk Harbor, it took less than an hour for the Viking Star and its 105 protesters to get to the Race, the often turbulent passage between Long Island and Block Island Sounds. To the east was Fishers Island.

Dozens of lobster pot buoys could be seen between the boat and the island. Visible to the north was the coast of Connecticut, where the Thames River, source of the contamination, passes by the city of New London. The riverbank is home to General Dynamics' electric boat division, builder of the Navy's new Sea Wolf submarines, and to a 600-acre Navy base where the subs will lie when completed.

Dredge Disposal

It is also home to 11 Federal Superfund sites - areas considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be polluted enough to require prolonged and expensive cleanup. The bottomland around several piers on the Navy base is being dredged, and it is the disposal of that material that is under fire.

"I figure if they can spend $4 billion for each Sea Wolf submarine, they can spend a little more to dispose of this stuff responsibly," said Rav Freidel, who, with Julie Evans, organized the anti-dumping protest for the Concerned Citizens.

The small flotilla of supporting fishing boats that organizers had hoped would join the protest, did not materialize. East Hampton Town officials, and those vying for their seats in November's election, did, however. A harbormaster was heard to quip that should the Viking sink, "We wouldn't have an election."

Three Wreaths

A plane that had flown the length of the South Fork passed over the Fishers Island-bound boat towing a sign that read: "U.S. Navy, Don't Muck Up Our Fish." The plane proceeded to New London, then returned to its Westhampton base by passing over the North Fork. A news helicopter hovered.

By the time the protest boat reached the Race, it had been joined by seven boats. The moment had come, and was recorded by video cameras. As though on cue, the sun dipped below a cloud to light up signs and three wreaths.

The latter, bearing the messages "In Memory of Our Lobsters," "In Memory of Our Mollusks," and "Don't Muck Up Our Fish," were ceremoniously cast upon the water. The ceremony was accompanied by an explanation of its necessity, read over a loudspeaker by C.C.O.M.'s president, William Akin.

Prime Fishing Grounds

Mr. Freidel said C.C.O.M. was not opposed to the Sea Wolf program, or the dredging, for that matter, but to the manner and location of the disposal. One million cubic yards of dredged materials known to contain heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and even dioxin, one of the most dangerous poisons ever created, have already been dumped less than two miles off Fishers Island, and another million cubic yards are to be added this year.

The dump site lies in prime fishing grounds that contain as many as 3,000 lobster pots, a number of them tended by East End lobstermen. Local sport fishermen angle there for striped bass and bluefish. A summer flounder (fluke) farm is located less than 10 miles to the west.

Strong tidal currents are known to rake the bottom, and the Navy has admitted that as much as one third of the material dumped last year is no longer on the site. The fear is that the dumped contaminants will be consumed by fish that eat other fish, and move on along the food chain to the dining table.

Which Law Governs?

A suit filed two years ago by C.C.O.M., the Fishers Island Conservancy, and a number of other fishing and environmental groups against the Navy, the E.P.A., the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection failed to stop the first phase of the dumping, which was completed last winter.

Congressman Michael P. Forbes, who is a party to the suit, has drafted legislation to close what he says are loopholes in the nation's ocean-dumping law. Advocates, however, claim dumping in Long Island Sound is controlled by older and far more liberal laws than the Federal Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972.

Whether or not the Sound is indeed regulated by what is commonly known as the Dumping Act may well be decided on Oct. 15, when Justice Thomas Platt meets with defendants and plaintiffs in Federal District Court in Uniondale. Opponents claim the dumping violates a 1992 amendment to the Dumping Act.

No Dioxin Check

Mr. Freidel said he was not at liberty to discuss continuing negotiations between defendants and plaintiffs in the suit. However, he said dumping opponents had strong evidence showing Government agencies knew of the existence of contaminants at levels much higher than permitted by law, and that one of them was dioxin.

Despite this, the final dredging-permit application filed with the Army Corps of Engineers indicated no tests for dioxin had been made, Mr. Freidel said.

"Let's say the other side winced a lot," Mr. Freidel said of the recent negotiations.

Protesters hope the talks will end in a cessation of dumping in favor of other disposal techniques.

While the rest of the East End is winding down after the summer, the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, which has just announced its fall program, seems to be doing just the opposite.

"Our exhibitions and programs are flourishing this fall," said Trudy Kramer, the director of the museum, "proving yet again that the Parrish is truly a year-round cultural resource."

Taiwanese art, contemporary photography, a series of talks with authors and talks about artists, a film series, and an exhibit of the paintings of Fairfield Porter are on the agenda.

Artistic Symbiosis

If there is an overall theme, it is the symbiosis between writer and artist: writers who are influenced by art in their work or artists whose paintings draw upon literary references, painters who are also poets, writers who write about art, or writers who also work in the arts.

In the next event in this fall program, tomorrow at 12:30 p.m., Robert Long, a writer and poet, will talk about collaborating with Alfonso Ossorio on a work that appeared in the Guild Hall Museum's 1982 "Poets and Artists" show. The exhibit featured collaborative efforts between many of the East End's leading poets and painters.

Mr. Long, who recently joined The Star's editorial staff, has contributed poetry to The New Yorker, The Nation, and American Scholar and has published a book of his poems, "What Happens." The museum's exhibit of Ossorio's "Congregations" can be seen through Sept. 28.

Rare Opportunity

The Parrish will open an exhibit of works on paper by contemporary Taiwanese artists on Oct. 5. "Tracing Taiwan: Contemporary Works on Paper" was organized by Alice Yang, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver in February shortly after becoming the museum's curator of collections and exhibits.

The show offers a rare chance in this country to see Taiwanese contemporary art, much of which contains innate political commentary on the state of the country and its relationship to the Chinese mainland.

"The show gives us a sense of what current work is like in places where there is an active political climate," said Ms. Kramer.

Porter Show

Concurrently with this show, which runs through Nov. 16, there will be an exhibit of paintings by Fairfield Porter from the museum's collection. The artist, an influential realist who died in 1975, spent much of his time on the East End during the most important working years of his life.

"Fairfield Porter was so catholic and broad minded in his interests," said Ms. Kramer, "he would have loved his work being placed in this international context."

"There is a lively cross-cultural exchange going on now between American and international artists, and the pairing of Porter with the Taiwanese artists amplifies this issue."

Major Photographers

Contemporary photography, speci fically photographs of hands, will be the subject of an exhibit set to open in November.

"Collection in Context" will have 67 works, dating from 1947, by such master photographers as Richard Avedon, Judy Dater, William Eggleston, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank, Barbara Kruger, Annie Liebovitz, Sally Mann, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Gilles Peress, Sebastiao Salgado, Cindy Sherman, and Alfred Stieglitz.

Films made by photographers will be the subject of a two-part discussion series with Marion Wolberg Weiss in December. A session on Dec. 7 will feature short films by the Lumiere Brothers, Robert Frank, and Danny Lyon. The subject on Dec. 14 will be Larry Clark's controversial "Kids."

Porter and Tuten

Focusing more precisely on the artist-writer symbiosis, three writers who live on the East End for much of the year will be interviewed by Ellen Keiser over the coming months, starting with the poet Anne Porter. She won't be reading her own poetry on this occasion, however, but that of her husband, Fairfield Porter, in conjunction with the opening of the show of his paintings.

Frederic Tuten, professor emeritus of the City College of New York, will read from his latest novel, "Van Gogh's Bad Cafe," which includes artwork by Eric Fischl.

The author will discuss how painting has influenced the subject matter and style of his novels, which include "Tintin in the New World," "Tallien: A Brief Romance," and the much-acclaimed "The Adventures of Mao on the Long March."

Gruen and Schapiro

John Gruen, senior editor of Dance magazine and a noted photographer, will show slides and discuss his work. His books include "The Artist Observed," "Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography," and "Flowers and Fables."

Meanwhile, Miriam Schapiro, a leader in the feminist and pattern and decoration movements, will teach an intensive four-day master class at the end of October to explore the connections between autobiography and art.

Ms. Schapiro, whose work could be described as autobiography made visual, most recently exhibited at the National Museum of American Art in Washington.

There will be a full supporting roster of lectures to accompany the major exhibits at the Parrish, plus plenty of programs for children.

Comedy, drama, farce, and a Gershwin musical are on the 1997-1998 schedule for CTC Theater Live of East Hampton. This will be the company's 16th season of community theater. Vaughan Allentuck, one of the co-founders of the company, is the new president of the CTC board of directors. Ms. Allentuck said earlier this week that she didn't expect any big changes in the company's direction; rather, CTC will continue to present "class-act plays" in new productions.

The 1997-98 season kicks off on Nov. 7 with Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park," to be followed in January by the Tennessee Williams drama "The Glass Menagerie," and in February by Jack Sharkey's farce "The Murder Room," described as a "hilarious murder mystery."

Tried And True

This year's spring musical selection is "Crazy for You," the revival of George and Ira Gershwin's 1930 show "Girl Crazy." "Crazy for You" received the 1992 Tony Award for Best Musical.

Barbara Bolton will direct "The Glass Menagerie," while the other three shows will be supervised by CTC's resident director, Serena Seacat. As in past years, all will be presented at the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall.

Earlier this week, Ms. Seacat described the attractions of working with tried-and-true material. Al though many people may have seen "Barefoot in the Park" or "Girl Crazy" in previous incarnations, she noted that "new actors bring something fresh and new to a production, and when the play is good, the audience sees it in a whole new way."

Two Special Events

Ms. Seacat has earned particular praise for her direction of musicals, such as last season's lavish staging of "Anything Goes," for which a number of the players learned, under Ms. Seacat's tutelage, to tap-dance.

The director is looking forward to this spring's "Crazy for You," which she predicts will present similar challenges and rewards. "It's good for actors to have to stretch their talents to the limit," she said.

The company is planning two fund-raising events this season. A Dec. 7 Jolly Holly Brunch, at Della Femina restaurant on North Main Street, will provide an opportunity for CTC to honor people who have worked with the company for a long time, or who have assisted with its mission over the years. Last year's honoree was Deedee Windust, CTC's first and only president until this year.

On Feb. 8, at Bobby Van's in Bridgehampton, For the Love of Theater, an evening of dinner and cabaret, will showcase musical selections from each of CTC's spring productions, featuring performances by original cast members.

Information on ticket sales, season subscriptions, and tickets to the two fund-raising events can be obtained by calling CTC Theater Live.

"All people should retire earlier than later," according to Vincent Grippa. "They get so used to working, they don't know what else to do." The owner of Jewels by Virtu in East Hampton, although unwilling to divulge his age, is taking his own advice.

So a discreet sign announcing "retirement sale" hangs in the window of his small shop on the Circle behind the Bank of New York. His regular customers have been stopping by, enjoying the 40 to 50-percent discounts and lightening the load of fine rings, necklaces, and bracelets in the display cases.

Bargain-hunters have until Sept. 28, the last day the shop will be open, to do the same.

Filling His Time

It sounds like Mr. Grippa will have little difficulty filling his time. "I may take piano lessons," he said. "I have a Steinway. It sits silently."

There may be voice lessons in store, too, he said, demonstrating a fine tenor, "but only for my own amusement. I don't have any close neighbors to amuse - or disturb."

Travel is also in the works. "I haven't been to Europe in years," he said. Trips to Italy and Spain are possibilities.

Then again, "If I get bored in retirement, I may open the store again in the spring, but on a smaller scale, as a summer shop."

Regular customers have already asked the jeweler to continue handling repairs and special purchases for them.

Second Generation

Mr. Grippa came naturally, if by a somewhat circuitous route, to his chosen field. The youngest of eight children, he was born in New York to Italian immigrants. His father was a jeweler with a shop on Second Avenue.

"He was a real craftsman, a wonderful, wonderful jeweler," Mr. Grippa said, although "he never made it big."

The father died when the son was 12, and an older brother opened a watch repair shop in the Chrysler building. At the age of 16, Mr. Grippa joined him, turning his weekly salary of $2.50 over to his mother.

"Oh, I hated it," he recalled. "I went to work early and came home late. I never saw the sun."

Sailing For Switzerland

The hours were not the only problem. "I'm not very mechanical," he confided. "I'm much more artistically inclined. I've always enjoyed drawing and sketching things."

In fact, a neighbor, a struggling commercial artist, used to ask Mr. Grippa for help on his projects. "Then he'd call me the next day at work and say, 'They accepted it!' and I'd do a slow burn."

Unhappy as a watchmaker, Mr. Grippa made up his mind to move to Switzerland, with a lead on a job with a major jewelry company, but his employment plans fell through after he had already booked passage.

Undeterred, he sent 20 letters to Swiss businesses asking for work, and received 17 polite rejections before he set sail.

Learning To Behave

He eventually found a job with a small import-export firm in Geneva, but the pay was not good, barely enough to cover the rent, which, he said, was inflated because he was American. "Everyone thought I had money, but it was tough for me."

That job fell apart too, when the company's owner was unable to finalize deals Mr. Grippa had arranged to bring American products such as Kleenex and Pepsi-Cola to Switzerland.

"It was a difficult but pleasant experience," he said. "I learned how to speak French and behave with people. I think everyone should travel."

Personal Question

Returning to New York, Mr. Grippa found work in a department store, though not without difficulty. "No matter what job I applied for, people told me I was either overqualified or underqualified."

Desperate, he walked into Klein's and asked to speak to the president. "I told them it was personal."

"The gentleman came out and said, 'I don't think I know you.'

" 'You don't,' I said, 'but I need a job.'"

Impressed with Mr. Grippa's resume and chutzpah, the president hired him as an assistant manager in the jewelry department.

It Wasn't Tiffany's

"I lasted all of two weeks," he said. "I was waiting on three customers one day. It was the store's policy to only wait on two at any one time. Another woman came up and asked me a question, and I said, 'I'm sorry, madam, you'll have to wait.'"

The manager then appeared. Instead of chastising Mr. Grippa for being curt, "he said to me, 'Why didn't you tell that lady to . . . . This is not Tiffany's. This is Klein's.'"

Mr. Grippa landed on his feet, working at other jewelry and department stores, before he joined David Webb, a jewelry designer. The job frequently took him to Paris, where he helped design and market jewelry.

His Own Shop

"People ask me, 'Do you design?' and technically, the answer is no. I never really sat down and designed jewelry, but I am presented with models and I suggest changes."

His suggestions to manufacturers have caused some headaches. "They tell me I'm more difficult to work with than Tiffany's. I tell them, Tiffany's sells a name. I have to sell a product."

By the late '60s, Mr. Grippa wanted to slow down. He moved to East Hampton, hoping to open his own shop, but "Everything I could find, I couldn't afford."

Eventually, he cut a deal with Peter Milholland, the owner of a gift shop on Main Street called the Black Whale. "I said, 'Give me a five-year lease, and I'll buy your merchandise.'"

Built Like The Rock

Once in business, Mr. Grippa renamed the shop Virtu, a play on his first name and a Latin word meaning a love or appreciation for things of beauty. Jewelry was a sideline. "I kept some things on hand," he said, "and one day a woman bought a diamond ring."

By 1977, he was looking to expand. Unable to find a suitable rental, he decided to cross the street and build his own store.

"It's built like the Rock of Gibraltar," he said proudly. The building has a slab foundation and thick concrete walls, required by insurers.

Robbery

Although he continued in the giftware business for a time, selling fine china and crystal as well as jewelry, Mr. Grippa eventually scaled back.

Despite being "vulnerable" in a small jewelry shop, he was robbed just once. It happened in 1993.

"Two rather seedy females came in," he said. "They told me they had $2,000 to spend on a bracelet." He showed them a slightly higher-priced piece, and the pair said they would return.

"They came back the next day and said, 'We have more money to spend,'" and asked to see a $7,500 bracelet. They also looked again at the piece from the day before.

"They took both and walked toward the door, as customers often do to get a better look," the jeweler recalled. "The next thing I knew, they were running out the door."

Business The Old Way

Mr. Grippa, who said he was not himself at the time because a friend had recently died, stood watching "for what must have been 30 seconds. I fully expected them to come back." By the time he hit the burglar alarm and ran after them, the girls and the jewels were gone.

So, too, is the old way of doing business, he said. The rule-of-thumb markup in the jewelry business, according to Mr. Grippa, used to be to double the price of an item and add an additional 10 to 20 percent. "You can sit on your inventory for a year, or maybe two to five years."

A Wedding Present

Now, he said, stores often inflate the markup and offer phony discounts. "Sometimes I go to the mall and I see young couples looking at engagement rings. They're spending $3,000 to $4,000 for a ring. They could have gotten a better one from me for $1,000."

Over the years, there have been stories that bear retelling, but Mr. Grippa is not the man to tell them. "Good jewelers," he believes, "are like priests. They never divulge their secrets."

"Suppose you say, 'Mrs. Jones, how do you like that pearl necklace your husband bought?' But maybe Mrs. Jones never got that necklace. . . ."

Still, he can't resist one tale. A well-heeled woman from a distinguished family came in once, looking for a wedding gift for a society couple. She settled on two planters decorated with frogs - at $6 apiece, the cheapest item in the store.

The plot thickened when the bride - a countess, according to Mr. Grippa - came in to exchange them. The jeweler, embarrassed for his customer, did not know whether to give the bride an inflated credit in hopes of being reimbursed by the gift-giver, or tell her the truth.

He settled on the truth. "You mean she only spent $12?" blurted Countess So-and-So. Mr. Grippa did not recall if she stuck around for a refund.

A new member of the East Hampton Village Design Review Board was named last week by the Village Board, with nary a nod to the public.

The decisions of the members of the Design Review Board are among the village's most far-reaching. The Design Review Board is more active than the Planning Board these days, given how little open space is left to be subdivided, and it deals with significant projects. Recent examples are the RECenter, the new building proposed for the Most Holy Trinity congregation, and the conversion of the former Mark R. Buick dealership.

The new appointee, C. Howell Scott, may be eminently suited to judge whether applications are in keeping with "the character and quality of our heritage," to quote from the Village Code. He may have an understanding of design and a talent for deliberation. On the other hand, he may not. He has not been visible in any way in the affairs of village government.

Ted Borsack, who served the village well for about 10 years, is deserving of time off. His intention to leave the board, however, should have been made public to allow other interested residents to be put in nomination and the selection process should have offered the public a chance to assess the board's official candidate.

With no political parties active in the village to take issue with what the board does, it is perhaps to be expected that it would revert to "old-boy" procedures. That doesn't make it right.

The proposed conversion of the East Hampton Medical Group into a funeral home has stirred up a lot of dust.

Neighbors, sounding appalled at the prospect, have found many arguments against it and have underlined their opposition with a pair of lawyers. Their point of view is that a funeral home is unsuited for a residential area and would contribute to unwanted commercial spread along Pantigo Road, the stretch of the Montauk Highway just east of the Village Sheep Pound.

At the risk of adding fuel to a fire, we disagree. Funeral homes are not commercial enterprises, but fall somewhere between medical facilities and churches. They are commonly found in residential districts, in small towns and large. Like ministers, funeral directors are called on to arrange services and burials and to comfort the bereaved. Other aspects of their work pertain to the physical remains. The clients of a funeral home happen not to be living, but they can still be considered residents, albeit transient ones.

While there may be minutiae in the East Hampton Village Zoning Code that could place the change envisioned for the building in doubt, the idea of using it as a funeral home is in keeping with the past. That would be a less intense use of the structure than a busy medical group and would occasion less traffic, less regularly.

Because most of us find it difficult to think about death and to be confronted by it, it is understandable that this proposal has its adversaries. Nevertheless death, although at the opposite end of the physical and emotional spectrum, is as much a part of life as birth and cannot be denied. A funeral home centrally located on Pantigo Road makes sense.

Researchers at the University of Illinois have announced, with appropriate public-relations fanfare, that trees are beneficial to the people living near them.

Duh.

Greenery, the scientists say, has a demonstrably calming effect upon human passions, in particular anger and hostility. They cite statistics showing that residents of a landscaped Chicago housing project reported far fewer incidents of domestic violence than those in buildings without trees, that children played more "creatively" on grass than on concrete, and that parklike surroundings encouraged relaxed sociability - walking and talking, presumably, rather than heading hell-for-leather home, avoiding eye contact and clutching the Mace.

"All kinds of things that are aesthetically nice have measurable and important effects on human behavior," the reasearchers discovered. "Heart rates improve; blood pressure goes down." The team concluded that green amenities are needed just as much in urban neighborhoods as "streets, sewers, and electricity."

Depend upon it, science can almost always find a way to spend money proving what is perfectly obvious to the rest of us.

The League of Women Voters, which does an admirable job of educating voters and encouraging them to go to the polls, certainly has its work cut out for it in Southampton Town this year. There are just six contests, but an usually large number of candidates - 30 - who will be distributed over seven lines on a ballot that bids fair to be as confusing as it is complex.

To begin with there are three horses for Town Supervisor, one a non-starter. Stacy Kaufman-Riveras, after being trounced last week in the Democratic primary, announced she would drop out of the race. It was too late, however, for her name to be stricken from the lineup. Ms. Kaufman-Riveras reckoned without her Preservation Party petitions, which were challenged by the Democrats but then declared valid by the Suffolk Board of Elections, putting her on the ballot whether she wants to be there or not. The lineup could change again between now and Nov. 4 if anyone else drops out, although the ballot itself is cast in stone.

Both the committed candidates for Supervisor - Vincent Cannuscio, the incumbent, and Arthur DiPietro, the challenger - are registered Republicans. Mr. DiPietro, however, will be running on the Democratic, Southampton, and Independence Party lines.

There are seven persons contesting two Town Board seats. Two are Republican-Conservative incumbents, two are Democrats with Southampton Party endorsement, two are Preservation Party candidates (one of whom has Independence Party backing), and the seventh is a Conservative who is running only on the Independence line.

Thirteen candidates are competing for five Trustee seats. The list of their party affiliations reads like the directions for assembling a 10-speed bike.

This horse race looks more like a steeplechase, which probably is good news for voters. Whoever said democracy was supposed to be neat?

Optical illusions and visual tricks, more the tools of a magician than an artist, are the weapons that David Suter wields in his exposure of duplicitous human weakness and stupidity.

With a few swift strokes of the pen, his drawings can nail the ambiguity of a political thought or expose a social injustice in a way that leaves no room for argument.

The drawings, which appear on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times, Time, Harper's, and The Atlantic, have become so instantly recognizable that they are known as "Suterisms," which is also the title of a book of his work published in 1986.

Virtual Reality

What is not so well known is that from 1985 Mr. Suter was one of the early telecommuters on the East End. Working at a prolific pace from his house in Amagansett, turning out as many as three drawings a day and winging them off to editors by fax, he seldom had to leave his house.

"It was completely isolated," he said. "No one was around."

His wife, the painter Catherine Eldridge, had Amagansett Conklin ancestors and his three daughters, now 14, 12, and 7, went to the Amagansett School, but after some years he began to wonder if isolation was such a good idea.

"It was like virtual reality - I was in daily contact with people I hadn't seen in person for seven years. And to them, I was becoming almost an abstract personality."

Watergate Drawings

So, feeling the need to reconnect to the real world, Mr. Suter and his family now spend half the year in New Canaan, Conn., whence he can commute to New York City in person from time to time.

Growing up in Washington, D.C., with a mother who was an artist and a father who worked for the C.I.A., he was exposed to politics and art from the start.

"I always knew I would be an artist. As a child I used to doodle in class instead of paying attention to the teacher."

As one of his first jobs, The Washington Post assigned Mr. Suter to do courtroom drawings of the Watergate trial, and he continued doing straightforward political portraits for some time. The drawings, heavily cross-hatched and detailed, are very different from his present clean, succinct, minimal style.

Double Images

As he became more aware of the stories lurking beneath Washington's political surface, so he became more interested in the surreal or subterranean world that lay beneath the external features of the personalities he was drawing.

"The more I got into the political structure and saw its ambiguities and ambivalence," he said, "the more I became interested in the use of double images. And the older you get, the more you become aware of human tragedy and fatal flaws."

For a piece on Reaganomics, the President's face became an empty factory with unemployed workers. An office worker sits at a desk that is a giant hand, crushing him. A jagged line on an office graph showing the Wall Street slump continues off the wall and splits the whole building in half. The wheel of a car steered by a drunk driver becomes a liquor bottle and glass.

Understatement

By now a full-fledged Op-Ed artist, Mr. Suter moved to New York City in the mid-1970s.

"I'm interested in understatement as a style," he said, "and in trying to produce a feeling of inevitability, where all the parts fit together as if there could be no other way."

Asked how he managed to get so many ideas that he can turn out some 900 drawings a year, Mr. Suter said they just came out of the blue.

"It can't be calculated," he said, remarking that he had tried to program himself to get ideas in his sleep, but it didn't work. "I try to strike some kind of a balance between intention and happy chance."

1914 Cottage

Mr. Suter's house in Amagansett is one of the original cottages on the Bell Estate, built by Dr. Dennistoun Bell in 1914. Zigzagging down ever-smaller country lanes and a long, overgrown driveway, one steps back into the past upon arriving at the weathered house, surrounded by huge chestnut trees.

It was both an economic and aesthetic choice to preserve the house in its original condition. The family even lived for some years with the original generator, which would reliably kick in whenever the power went out.

It was here, in a small brick studio that looks like an English gatekeeper's cottage, that Mr. Suter first branched out from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional.

"I thought I might make some ornamental fences and gates. Then I turned to miniature gates. And then I realized that what I really wanted to do was sculpture."

These extraordinary works, rough-hewn sculptural fantasies from the same churning mind that produces the cartoons, have been exhibited twice by Morgan Rank in East Hampton and will shortly be shown in London.

"Working as an illustrator, you get tired of everything being confined to this flat plane. You want to break out of it, and sculpture's done that for me."

The vital component is the mirror - a way of achieving a double image in a three-dimensional format.

Done By Mirrors

"What sprang to mind was 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' and the expression 'It's all done by mirrors' - though that implies that doing things with mirrors is easy, which it isn't. There was also the aesthetic challenge of using something that might be considered in bad taste and changing it into something interesting," said the artist.

The two shows at Morgan Rank were sold-out successes. Adults became children again as they looked at a piece once, then realized that when they looked into the mirror incorporated in it, they saw something completely different.

A horse races past a mirror, but in the reflection it is going in the opposite direction. A man sits astride a rearing horse, staff in hand - but look down into the mirror and the staff extends, skewering a fearsome dragon.

In a mechanical piece, a large hand moving strips of wood becomes a sailing ship moving up and down on the waves.

Eighty percent of the effort goes into the idea and the planning, Mr. Suter explained, the technique itself being rather primitive and tiring - chopping the sculptures out of pieces of wood.

And as if this new avenue of self-expression weren't ambitious enough, Mr. Suter recently embarked on a project that is positively daunting in its ambition and the amount of work that will be involved before it is completed: a hand-drawn film of "Hamlet."

Mr. Suter has been fascinated for years by Hamlet's ambivalence, feeling a connection with the ambiguity of his drawings. He wanted to see if he could match up Hamlet's uncertainty with the multiple interpretations that are available (does Hamlet really see the ghost, or is it just in his head, for example).

A Daunting Project

Only three minutes of the film are completed - which is actually quite a lot, considering that each second requires 25 drawings.

And that is just the introduction, though Mr. Suter has also finished a couple of seconds of the soliloquy.

With admirable sang-froid, he agrees he has undertaken a daunting project, but, as he says, there's no deadline and he believes he can finish in a couple of years.

"I've always liked the idea of trying to see what you can do all by yourself," he said. "It would be nice if it turned out that Stonehenge had been built by just one guy over a long time."

A Different Person

Mr. Suter has a square, stocky build and a square, bulldog face. Quiet-spoken and rather unsmiling, he has the impenetrable glance one might expect of a man who has spent decades pondering life's ambiguities.

When your back is to him, you have the uneasy sensation that if you turned quickly, you might find a completely different person there, or a mirror image, or some object representing "the artist being forced to explain himself."

Or perhaps it is just that after a while the vivid imagination of this artist starts to rub off on those around him.

AMAGANSETT

Morey to John Richards, Meeting House Lane, $745,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Smith to Michael Soleimani, Hayground Road, $388,000.

Doran to David Grant, Edgewood Road, $300,000.

Butter Lane of Bridgehampton Assoc. to Richard Brennan, Mitchell Lane (four vacant lots), $1,000,000.

Bridge Bldg. Co. to Orlando Lopez, Tansey Lane, $316,500.

Finney to Philippe Bigar, Tiffany Way, $350,000.

Wiskey Hill Inc. to Jonquil Enterprises, Mill Path, $225,000.

Mecagni to Madeline Doran, Sagg Road, $183,000.

Susan Gottlieb Inc. to Orrin and Deborah Devinsky, Rose Way, $775,000.

Woodridge Homes Bldrs. to Jack and Pati Haber, Sea Farm Lane, $310,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Siegel to Steve Madden, Old Orchard Lane, $850,000.

Chester to Jon and Tracie Grossman, Cove Hollow Road, $226,500.

Stewart to Stellan Holm, Georgica Road, $850,000.

Abacus Homes to Alberto and Ana Gomez, Jefferson Avenue, $150,000.

Conner to Thomas and Beryl Birch, Stokes Court, $200,000.

East Hampton Realty Assoc. to 66 Newtown Corp., Newtown Lane, $2,018,000.

Goldberg estate to Benjamin and Claire Dorogusker, Treescape Drive, $178,000.

Welby (trustee) to Thomas Lasersohn, Amy's Lane, $512,000.

Salomon (trustee) to Nicholas and Yukine Callaway, Georgica Road, $850,000.

Woods Prop. Inc. to Montauk Group Productions Inc., Goodfriend Drive, $300,000.

Chester to John Shanholt, Cove Hollow Road, $226,500.

Cohen to S&W Dev. L.L.C., Hither Lane, $850,000.

MONTAUK

O'Neill to James Cash, South Lake Drive, $310,000.

Varde Virginia L.P. to Joseph and Lorraine Dryer, Kettlehole Road, $170,000.

Perna to Robert and Kathryn Willets, Fairway Place, $155,000.

The Waterfront Inn Inc. to Ramon Becce and Andrew Presti, West Lake Drive, $750,000.

Eurell to Gerald and Gianna Flannery and Elisa Corridore, Gainsboro Court, $250,000.

NORTHWEST

Forst and Silverblank Inc. to Kathy Frazier, Long Hill Road, $570,000.

Cedar Woods Ltd. to Gary and Patricia Stanis, Owls Nest Lane, $175,000.

Goldstein to Brad Resnikoff, Spread Oak Lane, $405,000.

SAG HARBOR

Weseman to Jeffrey Koller, Redwood Road, $267,500.

Mahoney to John Vigna, Round Pond Lane, $420,000.

Konopka to Scott Fordham and Jenette Martaron, Merchants Path, $162,000.

Maeder to Donald Lipski and Teresa Hyland, Hampton Street, $250,000.

LeGrand to John MacArthur, Sagg Road, $158,000.

Zorzy to Dragon Seed Realty #1 L.L.C., Main Street, $426,000.

SAGAPONACK

Solomon (trustee) to Alfred and Janice Kelman, Sagg Main Street, $1,070,000.

Charles Rich Design/Build Inc. to John and Tammy MacWilliams, Hedges Lane, $500,000.

SPRINGS

Crane to Sean Murphy, Copeces Lane, $224,000.

Kurz to Roslen Tavera and Jose Gil, Broadway, $161,000.

Barlow to Maria Masliah and How ard Robinson, Sandra Road, $155,000.

Olsen Jr. to Neil Cohen and Sarah Person, Camberly Road, $234,000.

Miller to Joseph and Wendy Capri, Sandra Road, $200,000.

Ianell to Blake and Lisle Davies, Gerard Drive, $250,000.

Bliss to Joe Chaves, Guernsey Lane, $160,000.

McGilloway to Maria Novielli, Runnymeade Drive, $320,000.

WAINSCOTT

Petschek to Merle Levin, Sayre's Path, $540,000.