Frank E. Andrews – Sculptor

Note – this is a work in progress, and will be added to as time permits.

I first had the privilege of getting to know Frank when he and his girlfriend/partner, Michelle Drabbs, hired me to work in their business, The Sculpture Studio, in late 1975. I was just starting my first year of college at The Kansas City Art Institute, when they hired me to make welded-metal sculpture. Little did I know that Frank and I would remain friends for almost 50 years.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

After graduating from high school in 1975, I enrolled as a full-time student at The Kansas City Art Institute. Unfortunately, my financial status was such that I had to find a job. One day early in the first semester, I was perusing the bulletin board in the admin building, when I saw an ad for a sculptor-trainee. Of course, I applied immediately, even though I had never had an art job of any kind, and had never used any kind of welding equipment.

The business owners, Frank and Michelle had a small business making welded-metal sculpture out of brass, copper and steel in their basement, which they then sold in arts and crafts shows throughout the midwest. Incredibly, they hired me. So, here I was, a naïve, sheltered art student a few months into my first year, learning to make welded-metal sculpture in the basement of a couple of well-to-do hippie-intellectuals – and even though I’d had several part-time jobs prior to that, none had been essential to my survival, much less any kind of art job.

I was in heaven.

I spent the first days learning how to use their torch system (small oxy-acetylene torches with an inline liquid flux system (I still have one of the gasflux units, which can be seen amongst the photos below), and getting familiar with the particulars of the materials I was welding– sheet and wire brass, sheet copper, and sheet chrome-plated steel. I started by making small sculptures that were typically set into small pieces of stained and varnished driftwood (a single copper rose with copper leaves and a brass stem), or hung on a wall (a brass branch with copper leaves), and many other types of similar, nature-oriented decorative products. Everything we created was sold at shopping-mall arts and craft shows in the midwest. Note; I had no role in the retail sales operations, nor would I have wanted to.

Working for them changed my world. They were total hippies, that had been living and working in Austin, Texas, but moved to Kansas City the summer before I met them. They also had a small cadré of friends/sculptors from Austin (who were, like Frank and Michelle, all hippies, about 10 years older than me). They befriended me and showed me unbelievable kindness, teaching me welding, scuplture, art as a business, alternative thinking and intellectualism, joint rolling, and so much more. It was fun, cool, easy work, and a very special time in my life.

As I mentioned, the first year we worked in the basement of Frank and Michelle’s house, and their friends/sculptors were all long-hair, 60’s era hippies. We were making sculpture, listening to music, NPR and having a great time – I was in heaven.

In 1977, they rented an old stone-walled ice house at the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Ave and West 42nd St in the Westport area of Kansas City (it’s still there, as of Feb 2026), and moved all production operations there. It was a large space, which allowed each of us to have our own work table, with plenty of room in between.

I was given permission to come and go as I pleased, and to create personal sculpture projects on my own time. Even better, the studio was just a couple of short blocks from the center of Westport, which was also the hippest part of town in those days. I was frequently there evenings and weekends, creating stuff, partying, hanging out on the loading dock, going to bars, and just having an absolute blast. It was also a short walk from the Uptown Theater, so going to concerts was eee-zeee!

That was also the year I met Vince (Vincent Roark, see more on him below). Vince was an old man who rode around on a rickety old bicycle, spreading the gospel of geodesics. He was absolutely obsessed with drawing complex geodesic shapes.

Vincent Roark – or “Mr. Pyramid” as we called him.

Vince was an oddball’s oddball – he was also a mathematical savant. I met him while working at The Sculpture Studio (just one of several local oddballs I met in those days). I was working on a personal sculpture project one summer evening in 1977, and was outside the studio’s loading dock, painting the piece when Vince wandered by, noticed what I was doing, and started talking to me about geodesic shapes. In short order, we became friends, and for the next two years, he taught me all about geodesics – from the five platonic solids, to ultra-complex variations based on those. It was very educational and fun, and led to a few really cool sculptures, as well.

Read the letter Frank sent me back in 2005, telling me about Vince’s passing. Visit the The Living Archive. to learn more about Vince.

Below are a few photos I have of Frank and a few of my sculptures and other related images. I wish I had photos of Michelle, the studio and the work I created for them, but I don’t – of course, back then, cameras were FAR less common than now, most people didn’t take photos of everyday things like we do now, and I was far too poor to own a camera myself. And, as much as anything, I just didn’t think about it.