About the Artist

"It starts with an exciting field trip", Frank Andrews said when asked about his process for creating his welded copper petroglyph sculpture. "I hike into prehistoric rock art sites in the desert Southwest and Hawai'i, take photographs and make drawings, then convert them into sculpture patterns in my studio", he added.

Andrews has enjoyed a successful career as a sculptor during the past thirty-five years, a second career following his sojourn as a college teacher. His sculpture currently focuses on images derived from ancient stone carvings, with his stated goal to create wall hangings which capture the simple elegance and mystery of stone-age artistic expression while maintaining anthropological accuracy.

"My raw materials are copper tubing and copper welding rod", Andrews continues, "I bend different sizes of tubing to the image of my pattern, hammer the pieces flat on an anvil, then assemble the figure by welding the elements together with an oxy-acetylene welding torch. The design is then coated several times with copper welding rod to build up a texture that replicates the texture of the original stone image."

When asked about the unique patina colors of his sculpture, Andrews replies, "Copper, when hot, reacts with vivid color to re-application of heat. I let the sculpture cool for a timed interval then re-heat in selective spots with a sharp torch flame. Several repetitions of this process will yield a copper-orange-brown-blue patina which is actually part of the surface of the finished figure.

"The final step," Andrews concluded, "is to weld on the wall hanging system which consists of a small ring for wall attachment and pins which space the sculpture about one inch away from the wall. The wall shadows cast by this spacing greatly dramatize the figure."

During the 1970's Frank Andrews' sculpture was featured in galleries and art exhibitions across the U.S. He then decided to devote the travel time that this entailed to the creation of new designs and opened the Sculpture Gallery in Kansas City. A second gallery in Tulsa followed two years later. In 1989, after selling the galleries, he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and built a studio. Today he lives and works in Santa Fe and divides his time between that art-rich city and the Hawaiian Islands. His work is exhibited by 32 galleries on the U.S. mainland and in Hawaii.

Education: (Degree Programs)
B.S. University of Tulsa, 1969
B.A. University of Tulsa, 1971
M.A. University of Texas at Austin, 1972
Ph.D. University of Texas, 3 years in program. Needs to complete dissertation for degree.

Additional Study:
King's College, University of London, winter terms, 1970, 1971.
Kansas City Art Institute, 1979
Internship at Paolo Soleri's Arcosanti Project north of Phoenix, Arizona, 1984.