Getting to Know the Man Behind FrankArts.com | Tommy Frank | Episode 775

Tommy Frank | Episode 775

Tommy Frank was born and raised in Florida. Tommy received his B.A. in Ceramics from Asbury University (KY) and his M.F.A in Ceramics from Bowling Green State University (OH). In between Tommy was awarded three residencies: Morean Center for Clay (FL), Archie Bray Foundation (MT) summer residency and Odyssey ClayWorks (NC). He also attended the post-baccalaureate program at the University of Florida before going to graduate school. For nine years, Tommy was the Studio Manager at Belger Crane Yard Studios (MO). When he left that position, Tommy was supervising the Residency program, adult and children’s education programming, Studio Membership program and retail clay supply at Crane Yard Clay. Since 2020, Tommy has been the founder and CEO of FrankArts, an online platform that produces and hosts virtual workshops for artists. The mission of FrankArts is to make artist presenters and their workshop presentations accessible to a global audience while generating sustainable income for artists.

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Who is one person that inspires you and why?

Someone who consistently inspires me is Linda Arbuckle.

Linda was my professor when I was a post-baccalaureate student at the University of Florida. She is a major inspiration because of her drive, her intelligence, how attentive she is to educating. I remembering asking one time…when I was a post-bacc I was fortunate enough to be the guy who did work for her around her house. So I would spend a lot of my Saturdays those two years over at her place, you know, fixing up the chicken coup, or changing out faucets, or being scared to death by gigantic spiders around her property in North Central Florida. And we would have lunch and while we would have these lunch breaks…one time I said, Linda, why is that you teach? I am expecting this big explanation of the philosophy of pedagogy and she says, Oh, I’ll tell you why. The paycheck. I said, The paycheck? Because you don’t look at Linda Arbuckle and think she is a paycheck player, no way. She said, Well, you know, making pottery is difficult to make a living with and I can only make so much that I am comfortable with before my body hates me. I can only charge so much, the market can only bear so much. I could scale up but I don’t want to. And she’s like, I enjoy teaching and passing information on. She liked giving people information. She liked directing them into whatever resource they might need to continue their own investigation. She would joke, I just do it for the paycheck. But we knew she loved sharing information.

What is your favorite clay skill that you posses?

Oh gosh, that’s a great question. I mean, I have a lot of different types of skills. I have always enjoyed learning so picking up different processes along the way. Like so many other potters, I love to trim. I love to trim. I’ve never gotten on a wood lathe. I have dreamed about it. But when you are trimming clay and it’s that perfect consistency and it comes flying off in ribbons, I love that feeling.

What clay skill do you wish you could learn or develop?

I think the one thing I haven’t really dabbled in, though I do have quite a few friends who do it, is 3D printing in clay. I feel like it would be cool to learn. But most of them that I have talked to recognize that it is a lot of computer work and then keeping your fingers crossed hoping that gravity doesn’t have too much of an effect over the printer.

What is one skill you feel every ceramist should learn?

I feel like I come from a kind of formal background and I love the formality of composition and design and I feel like everybody should learn that. They don’t have to adhere to the rules but I feel like it’s important that they learn it so they at least know what rules they are breaking when they are breaking them.

As a maker what piece makes you the happiest to make?

It’s hard to define what piece. I do love to throw. I still love sitting down and making bowls or making mugs and making functional things. But I was getting ready for a wood firing at the University of Kansas, this was a few years ago when I was still living in the area, and I hadn’t hand built something large like I had when I had when I was in graduate school. So I made this bear. This nice big, coil built bear and it got destroyed in the firing, which is fine because for me the joy was in making and bisquing and driving an hour away to Laurence. Even though the head is the only thing that survived from the firing, there is drama knowing that it collapsed in the firebox.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

I was in Nepal once in 2006. I was there visiting some friends and they said, We could eat a goat today. And I said, Okay. So my brother is gong to the market to pick out a goat and kill and we will have curried goat for dinner. You down? And I was like, Yes. Definitely. We are in Nepal, this is happening. I’m not making claim that that’s a weird thing. But the fact that we ate an animal that had been alive 8 hours earlier. I don’t think that I have eaten food that fresh. So it was cool. It was pretty wild.