About

Tommy Frank was born and raised in Florida.  He spent a lot of his younger years in the woods, camping and backpacking around central Florida. He was awarded the Eagle Scout Award when he was 16.  Since then he has always enjoyed traveling and the outdoors. 

He attended Asbury University, a small liberal arts college southwest of Lexington, KY.  After graduating he moved back to Tampa to be a studio assistant for local potters Kim Wellman and Harry Welsch.  He then became the first Artist-in-Residence (AIR) of the St. Petersburg Clay Company (now the Morean Center for Clay) in 2002. Here he was able to experiment in atmospheric firings and gained exponential growth in both technical and aesthetic decisions.  Following the end of his residency, he was awarded a summer resident position at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT.  The short summer residency deeply impacted his life, challenging his views of manhood and growing up.  After coming back from Montana he took another residency position at the Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts in Asheville, NC. Asheville would prove to be fertile ground for inspiration and contemplation on his thesis.  However, he decided to enter a more academic setting by enrolling in the ceramics post-baccalaureate program at the University of Florida.  

Tommy accepted a graduate assistantship at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.  He completed his Master of Fine Arts thesis in the spring of 2010.  

From 2011 to 2020 he was the Studio Manager at the Belger Crane Yard Studios (formerly Red Star Studios) in Kansas City, Missouri. During that time he rethought the education and residency sectors, bringing about change that created a safe and healthy studio environment for creativity and artist expression. He continued his studio practice inside of this community, working alongside the nationally renowned Resident Artists and Studio Members of BCYS.

In the summer of 2020, Tommy left that position and started FrankArts, an online virtual workshop platform that supports artists be bringing them to a global audience that gets to see techniques and skills without incurring the costs of travel to workshop venues.

With the success and stability of this venture, Tommy moved home to central Florida to be closer to his family in Lake Wales. He met and married Faith Gallian Frank, an incredible supporter of the arts, and the two work hard to invest in their local community.

In September 2022, the Board of Directors of the Lake Wales Arts Council appointed him the Executive Director where his is currently working to honor and strengthen the 50+ year legacy of one of the finest visual and performing arts institutions in central Florida.