Frank Diettinger was born in 1975 in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved as an infant to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he would spend the rest of his childhood. As a child, his grandfather, a dental technician, introduced him to dental tech materials such as wax, acrylic and stone and techniques such as molding and casting. At age 12, Diettinger met Greg Funk, a local Pittsburgh artist and sculptor, who introduced him to the basics of special makeup effects. Diettinger began to explore clay sculpture and moldmaking techniques throughout his teens. After finishing high school, he attended art school for one year before deciding that being paid to work in the industry would be far more valuable than paying to go to school.
In 1995, at the age of 19, Diettinger relocated to Hollywood, California, where he worked in the motion picture industry as a moldmaker and lab technician for the next five years. Utilizing his skills in sculpture, moldmaking, dental lab techniques, and fabrication, he contributed to such notable Hollywood films as the Bicentennial Man (1999), Sleepy Hollow (1999), X-Files (2000), and many more. During this period, Diettinger became increasingly interested in utilizing the materials and processes he was using at work for creative projects outside of their practical applications in the industry. In late 1999, Diettinger was involved in a toxic inhalation incident that led him to a two-year convalescence. Unable to work in the motion picture industry, Diettinger entered a period of self-analysis whereby he eventually accepted the “accident” as an opportunity to focus on applying his expertise and technical knowledge to his own original compositions. Diettinger views his creative process as an ongoing healing mechanism that seperates him from his own consciousness and produces works that are, ideally, free of subjective prejudice. Each unique piece exhibits the conceptual freedom fueled by his constant state of discovery.
