Born in suburban Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania to a family with education and culture Andrea started life in a traditional 1950’s setting. But life swung her a curve when her father died in her ninth year. Andi ( as she has been called since those early days) and her mother moved to Greenwich Village in the sixties. New York City was jumping with the energy of the age. Bold feelings about politics and prejudice, war and peace, the loud voices promoting Native-American’s, African-American’s and women’s rights were evident everwhere.
Individual expression was an enticement that Andi began to explore on her own by walking all over the city. She particularly loved and learned from the Spring outdoor art shows. A family friend who painted exquisite trees was Manus Lichtenberg. Knowing him, following his successes and struggles were inspirational. Andi began to take art classes every Saturday in the historic Ansonia Hotel on the upper West side. Studying classical masters in class lured her to the Metropolitan Museum to see the originals. As her ability and perceptions matured she was attracted to the many local galleries in Manhattan. She learned to appreciate the emerging diversity of talent she saw. Adoring the abundance of opportunity; the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and the Museum of Modern Art, became regular destinations as well.
After graduating from Art and Design in commercial art and attending the New School she embarked on a commercial art career in NYC working with established illustrator,Phillip Fox .However she was drawn to California in the seventies where she met and married, Dan Seals. Art was put on the back burner when Danny and Andi had their daughter Holley. Motherhood inspired a deep need in Andi to discover progressive learning environments for young children. In her research she found that the Montessori method most complemented her belief system as well as her love of natural beauty . So when they moved to the San Diego area Andi was able to continue her art education at Palomar College and UCSD and obtain her Montessori education certification. Teaching little ones, continuing her education, raising a family and traveling extensively filled the next decade. At which time the family ended up settling in Middle Tennessee.
When she earned her B.A. degree in 1983, through Vermont college of Norwich University, she received a grant to open the Montessori Schoolhouse in Hendersonville, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville. Establishing the school fulfilled the dream of merging her creativity with the Montessori method. When their youngest son, Jesse, was born in January of 1987 Andi chose to be an at home mom working freelance art projects and serving on various community, art, school and ecumenical boards.
When Jesse entered school Andi realized she had postponed a vital part of her self-realization long enough. The need to nurture and struggle with the development of her artistic response to the world around and within her seriously began. Studying advanced techniques with exemplary mentors including Charles Brindley, she increased her knowledge and the desire to focus her attention on oil painting in addition to graphite and pen and ink drawing.
Her creative process includes trusting an intuitive pulse and reflection which brings depth into her creations. She has exhibited her oil paintings in various private and public solo, group and juried shows in the South. She has shown her work in exhibitions at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, Cumberland University’s Adams Gallery in Lebanon, Tennessee, Vanderbilt University Club in Nashville, Tennessee, the Renaissance Center in Dickson, Tennessee. A private invitational solo show in Houston, Texas sold out. Currently her work is in private collections and public spaces.
She has just completed 2 commissions for the Survivorship Clinic of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. They will be installed early in 2010
complementing the solo show which will hang in the Hospital gallery.
Recent life challenges have opened up a new world of expression addressing abstracted subjects in an abstract manner adding to her artistic repetoire. She teaches art privately to all ages and paints in her studio by a meandering creek.
UPCOMING EXHIBITS
Vanderbilt University
Medical Center
Nashville, Tennessee
Main Gallery
January-April 2010
Dennis and Philip Ratner Museum
Bethesda, Maryland
December 2011
