The time interval between earthquakes is much larger than the actual time involved during slip in an individual event. We have used this fact to construct a cellular automaton model of earthquakes. This model describes the time evolution of a 2-D system of coupled masses and springs sliding on a frictional surface. The model exhibits power law frequency-size relations and can exhibit large earthquakes with the same scatter in the recurrence time observed for actual earthquakes. ¿American Geophysical Union 1991