BALTIMORE--David Franks, a gifted poet and longtime MICA faculty member, died on Thursday, Jan. 14, in his Fells Point apartment. The Baltimore artist, also known as Footlong, would have been 62 this month. According to reports, Franks died of natural causes and friends said he seemed to be bouncing back since his cancer diagnosis five years ago.

Franks wrote prose in any form available, usually with a witty and somewhat wily sense of humor: writing poetry, songs, essays and even Congressional speeches in the mid-1970s. He taught writing at MICA throughout the 1970s. Though he was known as a writer and poet, he was as much a performer and artistic mind as anything else.

"Baltimore's David Franks was the sort of poet/artist whose work makes good stories to tell in bars. There was the time Franks conducted a musical composition played by tugboat whistles at Fells Point, or the time he commandeered a Xerox machine at Social Security headquarters, undressed, mounted the machine and photocopied his body," starts The Baltimore Sun's obituary of Franks, suggesting the tone through which the artist lived his life.

"David was an incredibly gifted and very complex poet and man," said Mary Ann Lambros, MICA's associate vice president for advancement planning & special projects who knew Franks from his time as a faculty member. "His years at MICA were uneven--sometimes wonderful, sometimes contentious, always interesting. He was an important part of the MICA 'as the hotbed for poetry in Baltimore' tradition that former [language, literature & culture] department chair Joe Cardarelli created."

A memorial will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 31, at The Creative Alliance at The Patterson (3134 Eastern Ave.). The afternoon will also include a potluck reception at 4 p.m. and "Footlong's Friends Read" at 5 p.m. For more information, click here.

Photo caption: Portrait of David Franks by Leslie F. Miller

 

Founded in 1826, MICA is among the top visual arts colleges in the nation. It enrolls 1,714 undergraduate and 218 graduate students from 48 states and 52 foreign countries, offering programs of study leading to the bachelor of fine arts (B.F.A.), master of arts (M.A.), and master of fine arts (M.F.A.) degrees. It also offers post-baccalaureate certificate programs and a full slate of credit and noncredit courses for adults, college-bound students, and children. MICA is recognized as an important cultural resource for the Baltimore/Washington region, sponsoring many public and community-outreach programs-including more than 100 exhibitions by students, faculty, and nationally and internationally known artists annually-as well as artists' residencies, film series, lectures, readings, and performances.