"Focus on the Figure" is a selection of works by Bay Area artist Viola Frey that gives a visual history of her artistic process and demonstrates the evolution of her source material as it morphed from inspiration to model to maquette to artwork. It has been speculated that Frey's process may have begun in the refuse/junk piles on the Lodi ranch where she was raised, where broken or cast-off ornaments and implements became rediscovered objects recycled toward more interesting ends.

Frey's interest in detritus continued until she had amassed a vast collection of flea market bric-a-brac - mostly molded or cast figurines made in Japan or China after World War II - which she would arrange in narrative tableaux and document in photographs, drawings, and paintings, or cast in clay. The vignettes might describe personal scenes from Frey's life or include a line up of characters - cowboys, Indians, gods, goddesses, comic book and cartoon characters, fairytale figures - an international cast in an obscure local drama. In her paintings and drawings, this cast of characters often whirled around a potter's wheel spiraling outward from the matrix - with the artist's hands - the "creator's" hands - shaping the clay and holding up the universe.

"Focus on the Figure" is a showcase of Frey's ability to create a vortex of theory by combining an artistic history with her own personal narration. Hung on a wall or displayed like bric-a-brac on hand-built ceramic parlor tables, the sculptures also allowed Frey to work through psychological interests and issues. Phobias, male/female power struggles, and sibling rivalries were all grist for Frey's ceramic articulation, leaving viewers to ponder their symbolic significance.

Viola Frey received her BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and her MFA from Tulane University in New Orleans. She retired as a professor from the College of Arts and Crafts where she taught for over thirty years.