Prof. Cummings Wins Top Faculty Honor

Frank E. Cummings III, an art professor at Cal State Fullerton, has been named the university’s outstanding professor, the highest honor bestowed each year by the faculty.

Cummings, whose artwork has been showcased in museums, galleries, books and magazines for the past 30 years, created “It’s Magic,” an urn made from a single piece of myrtle wood burl and inlaid with gold, onyx and ebony. The piece, completed in 1993, has become part of the White House Craft Collection in Washington.

Also in 1993, Cummings created an ornament for one of the White House Christmas trees.

In 1994, another of his urns, “On the Edge Naturally,” was purchased by a collector and donated to the Smithsonian Institution, where it is on permanent display in the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art.

Cummings has been a teacher, administrator and advisor in the Cal State University system for the past three decades as well as an artist. He now teaches several art classes.

When his colleagues nominated him for the award, they wrote: “Professor Cummings is virtually tireless in efforts to counsel and guide students and faculty. He represents a high level of dignity, commitment to excellence and concern for the individual. He is a role model to students and faculty.”

In a statement about his teaching philosophy, Cummings said: “The basic ingredients for the creative process are imagination, creativity, determination and an attitude of excellence. . . . Making mental images real and achieving creative excellence is very difficult and a constant struggle.

“However, without that struggle, the performance becomes mere therapy and the mental image becomes a fantasy.”