Artist & Builder LLC is the artist Frank Meuschke.
For
over thirty years Frank has supported his art making with a creative
blend of gardening, carpentry, teaching, and more. Having left his role
teaching drawing and fabrication to architecture students in NYC, he now
lives near Maple Plain, MN. He is currently teaching photography,
growing 8 varieties of garlic, and spends his free time learning all he
can about growing the native plants in the wetlands and woods around his
home.
Below is a brief exploration of Frank's work history. Please take a look at the Projects tab to see some of his past work projects. You can also "like" Artist & Builder on FB to keep up to date with ongoing projects.
Below is a brief exploration of Frank's work history. Please take a look at the Projects tab to see some of his past work projects. You can also "like" Artist & Builder on FB to keep up to date with ongoing projects.
A Brief History of Work
Frank is currently photography education programming specialist at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. He has been a Graduate Mentor in the Department of Fine Arts at MCAD and has taught his intensive course Landscape and Meaning at Art New England
in the verdant hills of Bennington, Vermont. Before moving to Minnesota
in 2015, he was the director of the Fabrication Laboratory within the School of Architecture and Design
at the New York Institute of Technology, located in the heart of
Manhattan. It was here that he also taught drawing and visualization to
beginning architecture students since 2005.
A
gardener since he was a child, he has a particular interest in growing
vegetables and native plants. In 2007 he started his popular garden blog
NYCGarden including nearly 2000 posts on gardening, landscape, parks and farming. He has been interviewed on WNYC radio and in the New York Times
for his gardening and blogging. In search of garlic to grow during one
late October planting season, he hatched an idea that became Hudson Clove
-a small, itinerant farm operation dedicated to growing 8 varieties of
garlic. He was selected to sell Hudson Clove garlic at the New Amsterdam Market,
a highly selective, local purveyor's open air market at the old Fulton
Fish Market. Since moving to Minnesota, Frank is blogging under a new
heading, MOUND, and is growing his garlic on a neighbor's sheep farm.
Prior
to 2005, Frank was the lead carpenter on three total renovation
projects in Brooklyn, NY. Two of these were a three and four story
wood-framed structure built in the 19th century. From shoring up
crumbling stone foundations, gutting and rebuilding floors and walls,
doors, windows, kitchen and baths -there wasn't a thing untouched by him
or his small crew. The third project lead was on a full-lot garden
installation, where he removed rubble by the truck load, replaced over a
hundred cubic yards of soil, added drainage, built concrete walls and
steps, cedar door and arbor, and dug in hundreds of plants.
From 2001 through 2003, he was appointed Dean of the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
in East Madison, Maine. After retiring from his post, he continued to
run the school's sculpture facility through 2006. It was in the rugged
outdoor environment of Maine that he began to consider building
landscape structures in his artwork, a practice that led to commissions
for functional forms in the landscape.
Between
graduation with his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1993 and Masters of Fine
Arts in 2000, Frank worked for Manhattan garden design firms Bill
Wheeler Designs and Evan C. Lai Designs where he installed and maintained rooftop decks, pavers, irrigation systems, and gardens.
