Michael Frimkess

His wife and collaborator, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, paints his ceramic pieces, often using anachronistic, contemporary images like Minnie Mouse or Condorito.

[1][2] After a year at the college, Frimkess switched his focus to ceramics, a move that he attributes to a peyote-induced vision of himself throwing a perfectly-shaped vessel.

[7] He also worked alongside sculptors and ceramists like Billy Al Bengston, John Mason, Kenneth Price, Paul Soldner, and others.

[8] In 1957, Frimkess worked in a small ceramics factory while on a trip with his family in Italy, where he received additional training in throwing a very hard type of clay.

It was there that he met his future wife and frequent collaborator, Magdalena Suarez, who had come to the Art Center from Venezuela as part of a fellowship program.

[2] While on the east coast, Frimkess was instructed to visit museums in New York and Boston to study Greek and Chinese forms of pottery.

[12][13][14] In 1970, his work was featured alongside Robert Arneson, Ron Nagle, and David Gilhooly's in an exhibit at the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[2][16] In 1976, Frimkess' work was featured at the Clay: The Medium and the Method exhibition held at the art gallery of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

[23][24] In 2013, some of Frimkess' early work was displayed at an exhibition called Grapevine at the David Kordansky Gallery in Culver City, California.

He also learned the technique of dry throwing hard clay with no water to make his vessels, resulting in walls that are remarkably light and thin.

[2] Prior to his multiple sclerosis diagnosis, Frimkess would glaze and paint all of his ceramics, decorating them with contemporary scenes and pop art.

[10][20] The images were often "vernacular or historical" and employed the use of cartoon sequences or word balloons[28] that often satirized problems related to corruption, segregation, and hypocrisy.

His work frequently dealt with racial strife,[29] and he often drew on his childhood growing up in a predominately Chicano, Japanese, and Black neighborhood.