Andrea has been fascinated by glass in one form or another for sixteen years.  After pestering her sister for beads of specific sizes for bookbinding, her sister plumped Andrea down in front of a Piranha torch, showed her the basics of lampworking, and told her to make her own beads.  The first time lighting that torch was really scary, but Andrea was not about to go back to her (little) sister and admit that! After that, she was hooked. (She later returned the favor by starting her sister on the path of metalsmithing.)  The problem with making beads is, of course, that one has to do something with them.  That started Andrea down the path of metalsmithing, both in copper and in silver.  Eight years ago Andrea added enamels to her artistic repertoire. 

In both glass and metal, Andrea loves to find the art inherent in each medium's physical properties.  Foldforming, corrugation, and raising are all techniques Andrea uses in her jewelry that make use of the way metal moves under heat and pressure.  Glass, whether ground enamel or in rod form, acts according to scientific elements -- the minerals in each color, its expansion rate, its reactivity, etc.  While the reaction can be predicted, the effect produced differs every time, and  and is dependent on the specific conditions under which each piece was created.  

Andrea works full time as an academic historian, but as she has had time, she has taken classes here and there, with Kim St. Jean, Anne Havel, and others.  Her primary instruction has come from asking "What would happen if I did THIS?"  and "Well, why not?"  Holidays  with her sister are usually punctuated with hammering, sawing, giggling and the occasional panicked shout, and lots of fun as Andrea and her sister keep asking, "What if .... " and "Ya think we could?" 

At Home:  Andrea is owned by TWO elderly dogs and a cat, tiny in body and great in spirit. "