Mystery Pot (Cookie) 40 Maker, David James Gilhooly 1943-2013

“That was the nice thing about clay,” he said. “If you didn’t like the way something really was, you could always fix it up,”

The exuberant, playful work of David James Gilhooly made him an international sensation in the late 60s through the 80s. His whimsical ceramic creations began with animals, including zebras and anteaters, and then there were frogs, lots and lots of frogs.

As a child, Gilhooly’s family lived in California, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Young David was an explorer and a collector from his beginnings. In 1961, he made his back to Davis, California, to begin college at his veterinarian father’s alma mater, University of California, Davis.

The anthropology major lied about his major to impress a girl by getting into Robert Arneson's first ceramic class. The girl didn't last, but this class was a turning point in Gilhooly's life. The first art exhibition he attended convinced him to change his major to art. It was the work of painter Roy De Forest, who became a mentor.

Gilhooly’s career really began in 1963, when he became an assistant to sculptor Arneson. In the wildly creative environment of TB-9 (temporary building number 9), that housed UC Davis's ceramic department, the Ceramic Funk Art movement within the Bay Area Funk Art Movement was born. It poked fun at the art establishment and high culture. Non-functional ceramic art that encouraged the viewer to not to take art or themselves too seriously was the message.

A large body of ceramic work was created between 1968 and 1984. This work is the evolution of Gilhooly’s FrogWorld. The frogs first began as handles for cups and evolved into full sized residents of an alternate reality with full histories and mythologies. There were frogs as Egyptian Gods, Queen Victoria, the Andrews Sisters, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin; all parodying ancient civilizations, religion, politics, and culture.

Then came FrogFood. Gilhooly’s frogs found themselves in and on wedding cakes, cookies, cupcakes, stews, sandwiches, ice cream cones and sundaes. Hundreds of frogs were shown in prestigious galleries, bought by collectors, added to museum collections, and enjoyed their moments of fame until Gilhooly had had enough. In the early 80s, he tried to send the frogs to space but there they evolved into planets and celestial bodies.

Gilhooly tried to quit frogs and ceramics numerous times. His later work brought his playful curiosity to printing making, plexiglass sculpture, collage, and assemblage. The last dated work we found online was ceramic from 2005. It is titled, “Free at last, free at last (Frog demons escaping the end of the world)”.

David Gilhooly received his BA in 1975 and his MA in 1977 from UC-Davis. He went on to teach at San Jose State College, University of Saskatchewan, York University, University of California- Davis, California State University in Sacramento, and Linfield College in Oregon.

Gilhooly's work was featured in over thirty solo exhibitions and is represented in the collections of the Laguna Art Museum, Oakland Museum of California, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Gallery in Ottawa, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

David Gilhooly died on August 21, 2013 in Newport, Oregon. He was survived by his wife, Camille Chang, and seven children.

The Frogs did follow him to other mediums. This print is titled, "1000 FrogAngels Dancing on the Head of a Nail".