In 1965, not only was
the reputation of TB-9 on the campus of the University of California
at Davis gradually
being built by David Gilhooly, Robert Arneson, Margaret Dodd, Chris
Unterseher, and Peter Vandenberge, but also close relationships and
a dedication to the work were being developed. Gilhooly would get to
the studio at 4:00 a.m. and the others would trickle in starting at
9:00-10:00 a.m. People would start leaving for home around 5:00 p.m.
with Peter Vandenberge leaving anywhere from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 or 3:00
a.m. It was in this environment that Gilhooly would make his first
frogs using the low-fire whiteware that they had developed.
"I made my first frogs
during one of our frequent cup making 
rivalries.
We all tried to make the most far-out, grotesque, unusually handled
cups possible while still keeping the cups functional. I made a giant
mushroom for a handle and set frogs below it. I also put one in the
bottom of the cup itself unknowingly tying myself to a joke that went
at least as far back as Babylon."
This
inspired Gilhooly to create FrogNapoleon (a bust) and other cups, Madonna
and Frog and San Sabastian pierced by pussy-willow shafts.
He had created everyday normal "Our World" Frogs to go along
with some of the large African animals that he had made, but these were
the first "civilized" frogs.
A series of lidded pots
soon followed, depicting a troop of Frogscouts touring around their
world while visiting national monuments like FrogMount Rushmore, but
the FrogWorld didn't really get underway until Gilhooly moved to Regina,
Saskatchewan in 1969.
Thinking he had exhausted
African animals, Gilhooly 
set
his sites on making domesticated animals that were also named for relatives,
friends, and colleagues. The dogs and cats would often be portraits
of real pets whose owners often furnished photographs for Gilhooly's
reference. The first was Roy De Forest's basenji, King, who was followed
by the likes of the Pink Terrier, and the Basset Puppies
that were so cute, people bent down to scratch their ceramic tummies.
The cats and dogs gradually got bigger like Sandy, a German Shepherd
or had litters like Brenda and her Kittens. The dogs 
were
often accompanied by ceramic droppings, that would sit surreptitiously
next to or behind the culprit, or by dog dishes sometimes filled with
dog biscuits. Pigs also made their way into the repertoire. Two such
pigs, Sheila Pig and Patrick Pig, a white Yorkshire, named for
Gilhooly's first wife and brother respectively, demanded explanation.
"I originally liked the
idea of making pigs better than frogs. I have always liked pigs.
They are very intelligent animals (more so than dogs) and in reality
are
extremely clean. Both dogs and pigs can be trained to find truffles
but people prefer dogs even though they don't do as good a job because
a pig will stop finding them for you unless you give him every third
one. A dog will keep working for you if given a piece of cereal that
smells and tastes like meat as a reward. And although scientists would
rather test drugs and other things on pigs because they are susceptible
to the same diseases as we are, pigs won't cooperate unless you treat
them nicely. But the trouble with making a Pig World rather than the
FrogWorld was that pigs are "loaded". That is, people have a lot of
negative ideas that are attached to pigs while frogs do not."
After graduating from
UCD with his MA in 1967, Gilhooly got his first teaching job at San
Jose State College in San Jose, California. It was a job, unfortunately,
teaching watercolor. Banned from using the ceramic facilities in San
Jose, Gilhooly continued to use the kilns at Davis on Christmas Holidays
and summers until 1977, when he got the bright idea that he could buy
his own kiln and plug it into the
dryer outlet of any house. Since he had to teach watercolors and had
no such experience, Gilhooly spent the summer making papier
mâche pigs, sloths, crocodiles and anteaters which he watercolored
using poster paints.
1969 found the artist
in a new position, this time at the University of Saskatchewan where
he would teach ceramics. It was here, in Regina, where Gilhooly's FrogWorld
matured.
"I traveled through early
Christian and Pre-Christian Greek and Roman Frogs and legends, arriving
in FrogEgypt. There was Frog Nefertiti and other assorted FrogEgyptian
Gods including several
versions
of FrogTut. There was a fine all gold-lidded pot called 'Unfortunately
for King Midas, he forgot about Beating His Meat.' There was a
multi-breasted Artemis, Fertility Goddess."
After reading Horodatus,
the artist was disappointed to find that what he thought were the multiple
breasts on Diana of Ephesus were in actuality wreaths of dates. Since
he was now the creator of the FrogWorld, he
decided
to "fix this up".
"That was the nice thing
about clay. If you didn't like the way something really was, you could
always fix it up. It had always bothered me when I was little that
the Andrew Sisters were not nuns but actual siblings. Well, the FrogAndrew
Sisters are nuns! And FrogMedusa not only had snakes on her
head, but also had pubic and chest snakes."
In
his 6 and a half foot tall Regina basement, during the dead of winter,
Gilhooly, revelling in his new found freedom of being able to buy fireworks
legally, started blowing up the world and truly realized the balance
of destruction and creation.
"For the first time I
could buy legal fireworks and while tossing them around the basement
for the edification of me and my children, I stuck one into a globe
of the Earth I had just made and for the first time ended the world.
San Francisco's British Council General renamed one that had been given
to him, 'Kissinger's Mistake'. By repeatedly destroying and
recreating the world, I was able to get rid of the nagging background
worry that the world might end at any time which had been ingrained
into me by the nuns and priests of my Catholic School upbringing.
This destruction and recreation of the world culminated in a large piece,
The End of the World which visited a show in Japan and was rejected.
It may have had something to do with the fact that I depicted Japan
as only a large volcano."
The first contemporary
busts, FrogVictoria and FrogWashington, made their debut in the Regina
basement. Even so, Gilhooly went back to papier mâche animals from time
to time.
"I
made lots of papier mâche things in Regina in my low-ceilinged basement,
sometimes making them too big to get out without having to remove the
doorjamb. Ted and Phyllis Hamadryas Baboon are from that time,
a portrait of the department chairman and his wife. Phyllis was scratching
Ted's ass."
After his dismissal from
the University of Saskatchewan in 1971 for reasons including the Hamadrayas
Baboon Incident, Gilhooly moved to Ontario and worked part time at York
University. He 
continued
to do so until 1977 except for one year away to teach on the other side
of the border at his alma mater, University of California at Davis,
in 1975-1976.
"I didn't want
to miss the Bicentennial Year and all the FrogAmerican historic pieces
that it suggested."
During the Toronto winter,
in anticipation of moving to 
the
country and living the country life, Gilhooly made vegetable things
and dreamt of the large garden he would have in the Spring. He planned
to have a vegetable stand where he would sell real vegetables and small
ceramic frogs. To help him foster the hope of Spring in the dead of
the Ontario winter, the artist started a series of pieces celebrating
the fertility and fecundity of nature. His knowledge of mythology led
to the creation his own in the embodiment of the Honey Sisters. One
sister, Black Doris Day Vegetable Fertility Goddess was actually
a portable vegetable garden suitable for the mantle of your fireplace.
Legend has it that the vegetables on her head could be harvested while
others would soon grow in their place and the 
potatoes
and peanuts would plop out of her chest one by one regenerating all
year long. Together with her sister, the Vegetable Fertility Goddess
with Asparagus Tips and other frog, pig and hippo characters, the
artist created the FrogWorld's equivalent of our Egyptian Gods.
"The Honey Sisters
would go around doing garden blessings, opening supermarkets and starring
in their own movies in the FrogWorld. These movies, which to us would
seem to be badly produced films on wartime backyard gardens, are considered
the epitome of the blockbuster in the FrogWorld."
The roles of Gods were
obviously different in the FrogWorld. This is true of many of the other
seemingly identical characters in Gilhooly's Universe. While the frogs
are us, because the frog body responds to its environment differently
than the Homo Sapiens body
we do use, the artist reasoned that history and lives would sometimes
parallel those in our own world but would at other times, diverge greatly.
This explains why the Gods and Goddesses of the FrogWorld had the
status of our world's famous movie stars or sports heroes.
Before the move to Aurora,
Gilhooly completed a series called FrogClassical Erotic Sculpture which
included Ganesha's Wife Giving Him a Nose Job and Priestess of
the Atlantian Bull God Un-de-bun-ded in her Traditional Double Uddered
Cow Costume. Then it was off to Aurora and the country life.
The anticipation of Spring
in Aurora was, however, dampened. During the thaw, Gilhooly discovered
that his house had been built on the shores of the glacial 
Lake
Ontario. He had no soil, but he did have the ability to "fix things
up". The completely clay Frog and Vegetable Stand made its
debut at an outdoor art fair in downtown Toronto that summer. Gilhooly
sold frogs and vegetables in various sizes and bunches. For the first
time, donuts, pizzas and pizza slices and assorted potted cacti also
made an appearance. When things sold out, Gilhooly merely restocked
the stand. The experience of selling things out of a cart so entertained
him that he eventually went on to another piece of mercantile art, the
donut cart.
"The donuts were so fun
that eventually I made two FrogFred Donut Carts. FrogFred was
my counterpart in the FrogWorld, having much the same hopes and desires
as I did. He generally wore blue coveralls and a straw hat."
Much to the consternation
of gallery employees, Gilhooly would allow people wanting a souvenir
of the show to buy a donut out of the cart at $5.00 each if they couldn't
afford the whole 
piece.
Many of his openings would feature donuts and milk instead of the usual
wine and cheese with gallery employees complaining about crumbs left
on carpets. To this day, children of that time, now in their late 20's,
remark to the artist how "child friendly" his openings were and how
for many of them, his openings were the art shows they were allowed
to attend and enjoy with their parents.
"At that time a lot of
people involved in The Arts were complaining about the lack of funds
for museums, shows, public art, etc. One of the main problems with
The Arts is that they can be so child-unfriendly. You can't take a
child to a concert because you're afraid they'll make noise, they don't
think of making an enclosed room for children or even mothers with babies,
they're simply excluded from the experience. You can't take children
to a museum because you're afraid they'll touch something. Rather than
exclude them, why not have paintings or sculpture that they can touch
and if they've touched enough, maybe they'll be ready to just look a
little later. If we don't educate our children by taking them to concerts,
allowing them to come to openings, or taking them to museums, why would
they want to support The Arts as adults? That's why I wanted to make
it possible for children to attend my openings, especially with their
parents. I wasn't trying to address children as much I was trying to
include them."
Inspired by the watermelon
seeds sprouting, Phoenix-like, from his first compost pit in the middle
of Winter, Gilhooly began the "Miracle of Compost" pieces featuring
the "King of the Pit" in various situations. The King was essentially
a living frogomorphic pile of droppings. Gilhooly's children would
often dare visiting children to touch the King and upon touching it
themselves would give the joke away by explaining that is was all clay.
The joke, however, was on Gilhooly himself. When trying to get the
piece, "The King of the Pit" from Canada to the United States, US Customs,
believing the piece to be made from cattle dung, refused to let it enter.
The exploration of destruction
and recreation, death and rebirth, and the fecundity of nature naturally
led the artist back to Egyptian Mythology and the idea of preserving
the body for use in the afterlife.
"After
FrogOsiris was killed by his brother Seth, cut into pieces and thrown
into a pond, a passing hippopotamus rescued him by bringing the seven
pieces to shore. FrogOsiris's Wife, Isis put him back together with
strips of pastry and he went from being the Vegetable God to the God
of the Underworld. FrogMummies are wrapped in pastry dough to this
day."
Hence, Mother-in-law
Mummy of the Neroic Period and
the
scary Boris Frogloff in his Famous Role in "The Return of the Mummy".
The later piece had to be sold three times before it had a place to
stay.
"Each buyer came
back with a fantastic excuse, 'My wife dreams of It coming up the stairs.',
'My children won't go into the same room with It.', but the final buyer
(so far) keeps it out by her barbecue pit. Her dog threw-up on my foot
during the installation (critics abound)."
Enduring the disadvantages
of living in the country and not being able to enjoy its amenities seemed
pointless to the artist so he moved into Aurora proper. As an answer
to his gardening failure, he produced Vegetables are the Piles on
the Bum of Mother Nature. The frogomorphic nature of Gilhooly's
Mother Nature suggests the artist's personal disappointment as seen
through FrogFred's eyes. This led to the introduction of a most disgusting
and disturbing practice in the FrogWorld, "misvegenation", the practice
of having sex with vegetables, a high crime in the FrogWorld, as expressed
in a particularly dark piece, Seducing a Rutabaga in an 
Overstuffed
Chair. Not only was Gilhooly confirming the "can't have" of his
gardening career, but also the very human tendency to take it a step
further with "since I can't have..., I'll do bad things to...".
Meanwhile, outside the
studio in the real world, meat for the first time in Canada and the
US was becoming quite expensive. People were used to $.30 US for a
pound of hamburger and were now asked to pay over a dollar a pound.
Since meat was the antithesis of vegetables and because the media was
constantly bombarding the public with this issue, Gilhooly began work
on A Real Meat and PotatoMan, an actual frogleader disguised in meat
and potatoes to go out among the people. The common frog was also
besieged by meat in Beaten by Ur Own Meat. Contemporary issues
and politics had always influenced the Gilhooly's work but he was always
careful not to let the issue date the piece.
"You have to be very careful
about political art. In order for a piece to survive in the continuum
of time, a piece must first survive as a communication of multiple ideas
esthetically presented, not as a singular statement about the times.
The viewer shouldn't have to know what was happening during the particular
time the piece was made to appreciate it. It does enhance the enjoyment
of 
the
piece, but it shouldn't be necessary. I use humor in my work to get
people's attention. Whether they know what was happening during the
time I made the piece or not they can respond to the humor. It's like
a refrigerator door. It's very hard to open a refrigerator without
the handle on the door, but there is some really great stuff inside.
My refrigerator door handle is humor, but many people don't really understand
that the piece is 
addressing
something often quite serious, even dark. Often, my humor softens
the blow of the real message too well and people don't get beyond the
light heartedness. Some one once called it 'Soft Horror'."
Shortly after "misvegenation"
was exposed, another high crime in the FrogWorld was revealed. The
act of wallowing in and then gumming bathtubfuls of certain foods was
a crime usually indulged in by only much older frogs. The bathtubs
served to contain the mess thus concealing the crime more easily.
The examination of the fecundity of Nature led the artist to examine
the excesses and overindulgence of Man Frog. Some were as blatant
as Bursting After Breaking the World's Chocolate Donut Eating Record.
Others more covert, as in Frog Mountie Dropping His Cookies.
Frogs were seen wallowing in tubfuls of roast chickens, chocolate, meat,
or
pastries often wearing masks to assuage their consciences.
Technically speaking,
the bathtubs contained the piece and lifted it in a more presentational
manner. But excesses and overindulgence are not contained and proper
handling of the subject demanded a larger, more excessive format.
Drowning in the Consumer Market and Dunking in Ur Donuts
were
pieces meant to be installed in a hole in the floor, the idea being
that there was more stuff under the house and the piece was just "the
tip of the iceberg". Gilhooly had never let the size of a kiln stop
him from making anything, he simple cut the piece cleverly in a number
of places and fired it in installments.
Bathtubs
to boats or arks was an easy enough transition. After all, arks are
just inverted bathtubs, one holds water, the other is held by water
and after the suggestion of a subject, the artist always balanced
out his universe with its antithesis. Even so, he would never really
leave a subject, often returning to it months, sometimes years later.
"I started making arks
mainly because I liked piles of colorful things and mass quantities
of stuff contained in something. The ark seemed like the perfect place.
The first three arks were the story of the FrogNoah brothers who divided
up all the plants and animals from the sinking Atlantis. Olmec FrogNoah
went West, Mediterranean FrogNoah went East and Antarctic FrogNoah went
South but was never heard from again. It was in his ark that unicorns,
dragons, griffins, ect. were lost. An easy 'ton' of arks followed in
the next ten years as well as canoe pieces."
The
ark pieces introduced other members of the FrogWorld with them. MoosePotter
Returning with a Few Greek Souvenirs and Turned on by confiscated
Erotic Moose Pottery gave Gilhooly the excuse to do miniature historical
pottery and to include commentary on historical objects of art and how
they are perceived in modern times. Other pieces like FrogMedusa
and Her Recent Cruise Dates, Rough Crossing and the FrogFred and
FrogVictoria pieces that narrate the settling or unsettling of the of
New World allowed the artist to bounce around time and space and to
come back to old characters or those newly remembered.
The artist's obsession
with "more is not enough" led to the appreciation of the single entity.
The FrogWorld was given an art form.
"FrogFood, that uniquely
ranoid art form, began in Aurora but come into full fruition in Davis
in 1975 and 1976. Some of the earliest pieces were Never on a Sundae,
and bowls of Chocolate Moose which often came with a mounted
mountie. If there was a literal ton 
of
arks, there were three tons of FrogFood. I like to think of all of
them as being part of one piece and that the owners could get together
in a sort of reunion and make a whole FrogFood Supermarket. The Frogs
did not eat the way we do but rather, took much of their nourishment
directly out of the air through their large stomach-like lung or from
the sun through their large area of exposed skin. Thus, to lose weight,
a frog would wear clothes or stop breathing. Still, much of the economy
of the FrogWorld was based on the raising of food stuffs solely to make
into art. There were professional artists who set the trends from year
to year, designing various forms of FrogFood. Most of the art, however
was done by families on a weekend, often at holiday art resorts. To
commemorate these art events which were fugitive (food doesn't last),
small ceramic miniatures were made which each family kept on a special
set of shelves in their main living room. One year frying pans with
frogs skating on their backs in melted butter or nestled in fried eggs
and bacon would be popular. Sometimes saucepans of frogs and various
foods were popular as Macaroni and Cheese with Frogs or Frogs in 8-bean
Stew. Or bowls of cereal and frogs would be popular for a year or two
or cups of hot chocolate and frogs sometimes including miniature 
marshmallows
or a cow. Once, great bowls of cookies and frogs were popular, one,
FrogMounties and Maple Leaf Cookies was especially decorative. Frogs
would even go so far as to make themselves into Fudgsicles or Popsicles
regardless of the discomfort."
So as not to miss The
United States' Bicentennial Birthday, Gilhooly moved house to Davis
in 1975. For the first time in many years, Gilhooly, had access to
large kilns which gave rise to the many busts of frog historical characters.
Besides the Bicentennial inspired pieces like FrogFranklin and His Pet
Wild Turkey and FrogWashington, the artist again balanced his
own universe by also creating pieces influenced by his life in Canada
as in FrogVictoria in
Her
100th Year as Queen. He would also create one of the extremely
rare toad pieces, Mao Tse Toad on a Ming Base and a series of Tantric
FrogBuddhas that were actually power broadcasting stations for sexual
energy used in the FrogWorld to run small appliances.
After the prolific years
of the mid-seventies, Gilhooly, having a growing dissatisfaction with
clay, animals and even, three dimensional forms sought to terminate
the FrogWorld and his accustomed way of expressing ideas and opinions.
Even so, he would return to clay to work out two final ideas, the deli
pieces and the planet series before devoting himself full-time to his
work in Plexiglas.
