About the Artist

In the High Sierras between Kings Canyon and Yosemite, Andrea found serendipity.  The effort of backpacking into pristine granite fortresses became purification, and the reward heaven.  From the sublime alpinglow and thawing tundra, to rivers singing through forests and the hermit thrush’s liquid peace-call, she was finally home.  Safe and free in wildness, Andrea drew to connect with the world.  Her art and life were so rooted in the mountains that not even disablement would keep her away. 

Andrea’s dominant hand stopped working in 2017.  An accident initiated a disease called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) that caused her fingers to contract and swell until her hand resembled a club.  Touch was torture.  One handed, Andrea resolved to adapt.  Vice grips between her knees opened paint tubes, and she painted with only a pallet knife to avoid brush maintenance.  She decided to use painting as her version of physical therapy.  Like an excited child, her right hand couldn’t resist moving through the immense burn to mix colors and spread paint.  Andrea’s hand regained some function through the miracle of art.  Though brushes have returned to her grip, the spontaneous play of the pallet knife has expanded her work. 

Now recovered enough to hike with her setup and paint outdoors, “en plein air” has become Andrea’s favorite way to express the profound peace and beauty of wildness.  She paints her experiences of immersion with nature both on location and in the studio.  Mountains move in close and become intimate partners, trees embody story-telling gestures, and clouds give rise to ecstasy.  Andrea doesn't feel separate from any of it, and her sense of peace and wholeness is so profound she shares her work so others are inspired to feel it too.