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Artist & Builder LLC is the artist Frank Meuschke. 

Having left his role teaching architectural drawing and fabrication to architecture students in NYC, he now lives in the woods near Maple Plain, MN. He is currently teaching photography and drawing courses, farming 8 varieties of garlic, and growing native plants for Minnesota wetlands and woods.

Below is a brief exploration of Frank's work history. Please take a look at the Projects tab to see some of his past landscape projects. Follow @shelterwoodgardens on Instagram to keep up to date with his ongoing projects.


A Brief History of Work


Frank is currently the adult education manager of photography programming at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. He also has taught at MCAD in the continuing education, graduate, and pre-college programs. He has been twice the recipient of Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant for his work as artist in residence at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve and to develop a landscape photography seminar. He previously taught his intensive painting course, Landscape and Meaning, at Art New England in the verdant hills of 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 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 founded his popular garden blog NYCGarden, including nearly 2000 posts on gardening, landscape, parks and nature. He has been interviewed on WNYC radio and in the New York Times for his gardening and blogging. In search of garlic to grow one late October planting season, he hatched an idea that became Hudson Clove -a small farm operation dedicated to growing 8 varieties and several strains 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 grows 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 three and four story wood-framed, 19th century structures. 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 and 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 as part of his artwork, a practice that led to several proposals and a handful of completed projects.

In 2000, Frank received his Masters of Fine Arts in painting and a minor in landscape design. His thesis work was centered on plein air landscape paintings and his minor work completed a landscape design and build for a local Habitat for Humanity home. Before heading to graduate school,  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 planted gardens.