David Gilhooly was a leading figure in the San Francisco Bay area Funk movement of the mid 1960s and instrumental in establishing ceramics as a significant medium in contemporary art of the period. The son of a veterinarian, he initially enrolled in biology at the University of California, Davis, before switching to anthropology, and finally ceramics. These experiences informed his whimsical and irreverent animal ceramics. Gilhooly challenged the seriousness of the art world, parodying ancient civilisations, religion, politics and culture through the absurd imagery of his alternative universe known as FrogWorld. His work investigates notions of nationalism and the hero worship of historic figures though monuments and sculpture.

Turned on by confiscated erotic moose pottery 1977 shows a frog wearing the distinctive flaming red jacket and hat of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police seated at one end of a dug-out canoe being paddled feverishly by a beaver, surrounded by Native American pots. This work also sits within a group of Gilhooly’s ceramics that explore arks: ‘I find the image of arks compelling; this container, sea going, and filled with lots of wonderful small things.’^[i] These vessels take a number of forms—from Native American canoes and Christian arks, to more ubiquitous vessels such as bath tubs, coffins and wheelbarrows. Gilhooly liked the possibilities of hoarding and filling that an ark presented, as seen with the erotic moose pottery surrounding the Mountie.

Simeran Maxwell

^[i] Gilhooly in Baker, p 43.