He waxed poetic about exotic skill sets ranging from meditation to Chinese martial arts practices and classical western music theory. Crowning all these ideologies was his fervent belief in the significance of certain wheel-thrown ceramic vessel forming techniques, which he claims were handed down through history directly to him from the ancient Greeks, via a pottery factory in Western Pennsylvania.

And while I thought his belief in throwing nearly rock-hard clay without water was more devout than an orthodox rabbi’s belief in one God, Frimkess has embarked on a second quest for a holy grail over the past twenty years–trying to build the gas-fired kiln analog of a 100 mile per gallon eco Maserati sports car.

What does all this have to do with the perfection of imperfectability?

Consider the alluring beauty of Platonic forms: Perfect triangles and golden rectangles glisten in the mind’s eye as we meditate on the concept of an ideal circle. But when we look around us, we witness that chaos reigns in a universe dominated by entropy. No wonder people spend lifetimes out in the barn trying to build perpetual motion machines out of spare bicycle and lawnmower parts. If we just try hard enough we might achieve an imagined perfection! It turns out the world is full of wondrous inspiration but short on frictionless movement.

Returning to Michael Frimkess’ influences – We witness an overarching striving for an elusive sense of a global perfection. Renaissance artists–inspired by the Greeks–could be sculptors, painters, architects and scientists, who might even work their way through medical school as ceiling muralists! Da Vinci inspired generations with a grasp of many art forms and an ability to render impressions of the world in startling realism via an understanding of perspective, optics and expert craftsmanship. The sciences evolved also, producing great minds like Euclid and Newton, yielding a worldview of a perfectly operating universe analogous to giant cosmic clock.

But the clocklike perfection and harmony of the spheres view changed with the “modern” era. Einstein sent Newton on a time travel ship. Picasso and Pollack took art from exquisite renderings and multi point perspective to cartoon nudes with multi-nosed faces, and paint applied by drip and splash.

And pottery at Otis Art Center in Los Angeles in the 1950’s evolved from the teapot and casserole dish, to an infinitely changeable canvass for creativity with no rules for form and no need for function: In 1956, student Michael Frimkess had a vision that set him on the road to a personal art renaissance. He was partly inspired (like those Renaissance artists) by the Greeks as people. But in Frimkess’ case the main fascination was with Greek pottery.

But despite recognition for these innovative pop cultural mash-ups projected upon the clay symbols of historic civilizations, what Michael Frimkess really cares about – a consistent obsession – is “the way it’s made”, far more than the end result. The final product is a desirable outcome, but Frimkess' driving impetus is an underlying belief in idealistic visions and hands-on experience. Though his art relates to the Pop movement, it is unlike the facile artifice of an Andy Warhol. Although he appropriates symbols and mass media images, he does not eliminate the hand of the artist which we miss in the magic-trick simulacrum and symbolism of Koons.

In contrast, Frimkess is completely obsessed with the process of the artist/craftsman’s discipline. He is a unique pioneer evolving in the milieu of abstract expressionism, in that he was not focused on the emotive gesture. Frimkess combined a renaissance-like inclusiveness of multiple fields of endeavor with a pop inspired eye for contemporary culture, and an eccentric sense of humor, integrating all these elements vertically into a cohesive world view, lifestyle and artistic pursuit.

Imagine a politically progressive, multi-media public access website with Wikipedia links at every juncture. Frimkess as “programming” director wants to encompasses everything from ecology to racial inclusiveness and provide equal opportunity for Greek Classicism and California funk. His pod casts might expound on the common musical theory basis of Bach and Charlie Parker. His commentaries are out-of-left-field notions of a better world. And whatever his personal foibles, Frimkess strives to make a contribution to society via his efforts.

Returning to ‘the perfection of the imperfectible’, Frimkess loves to talk about the Western musical scale and theory which we all take so for granted. Western music theory is a thing of mathematical beauty, the basis of chordal harmonies and the foundation for a 100-piece orchestra, playing in synchrony. All this, an artifice which is no more “perfect” than a 50 cent kazoo, though far more complicated and elaborate. For without some artistic wiggle room, the Western musical scale is not nearly as good as it sounds on paper. The “well tempered” scale is superior to a thing of mathematical perfection, only when it reaches human ears. And the beauty of jazz and blues music is invoked through the breaking of those sacred rules – the ‘bending’ of notes of the scale is one way musicians achieve a soulful sound.

Newtonian physics once posited the universe as a giant clock, but ideas of transcendental Platonic perfection are sooner or later dispelled.

Nowhere does the importance of imperfection play a more important role than in Frimkess’ best work. The seemingly exquisite Greek vase, upon further inspection is not so perfect after all. The famously thin walls that Frimkess stretches out of clay have tiny holes where chunks of irregularly sized grog tear through the surface. The hospital white glaze is not so even, and the cartoon like imagery doesn’t have the fluid elegance and hair thin lines of ancient Greek pottery. Instead, up close we see irregular wobbly edges and mottled solid colored areas of China paint. There is a slight seismic tremor passing though all of Frimkess' lines: The heart beat of the soul? The funky echoes of mid 1950 sessions in the studio with Peter Voulkos? Or is it just the no-longer-steady hand of an artist that has suffered 40 years with multiple sclerosis?