BIOGRAPHY
It is perhaps no surprise that Mitch Fry is today a successful artist. His father Collin Lee was a professional artist and his Illinois upbringing afforded him the opportunity to take art classes as the Art Institute of Chicago. As young as ten years old, he spent time around art, helping at the frequent summertime art fairs so popular in the Great Lakes area. In high school he was awarded a number of scholastic art awards. In addition to art, he was also a gymnast, learning important foundational skills for a sculptor: strength, balance, and symmetry. Despite receiving an art scholarship to attend Arizona State University, he pursued engineering and worked with Ray Fink of ASU Environmental Design. His restless curiosity ultimately took him to England to study industrial design with Victor Papanek. He took classes at Manchester Polytechnic before returning to ASU to complete his degree in Arts and Crafts. While still in school, he began his first vocation, building restaurant tables. After graduation, this interest led to the formation of his first company in Prescott, AZ Imagine That Design and Fabrication where he built theme restaurant interiors and furniture. As the Valley grew, he designed furniture for the new Westcor malls that dotted the metro area in addition to a number of restaurants. In 1983 he relocated to Florida for a dozen years to perfect his skills as a woodcrafter and designer before returning to Arizona in 1995 to design the McKellips Bay Restaurant which lead to the formation of Mitch Fry Associates working to design and fabricate furniture for commercial and residential properties. Eager to return to his childhood love of art, he fashioned his studio for full time use as an artist. Eager to combine his thoughtful pursuit of design with art, he began exploring the role of the sphere. Keenly aware of the importance of “green art” he took the notion of using materials that were frequently discarded, such as old pallets and using that material in his carefully designed, large-scale spheres—taking castoffs and creating perfection.His unique perspective won him the Phoenix Art Museum’s Contemporary Forum Emerging Artist materials grant for 2009, culminating in a museum show in May of 2010.