My Story
“Andrea, come and look at this!”
said my mother as she opened the old cedar chest. I was 10 years old and watched in awe as she unrolled sheet after sheet of her paintings and drawings and then those of my grandmother. I wondered, “Could I ever make such amazing pictures?”
An excerpt from “SACRED POOLS”, a painting by Andrea Oreck, inspired by the natural beauty she found while traveling through Maui, Hawaii.
As a child growing up in the Los Angeles area among concrete sidewalks, blacktop roadways, and billboards advertising the next thing we should buy, I craved being in nature. I sought refuge from the city bustle by taking long walks in the few wild places that remained undeveloped. I learned to look at the light falling on the yellowing leaves of the Plain Sycamores. I sat mesmerized, watching the flow of water over the stones in a canyon creek. All this was preliminary practice in learning to see. Gradually I was moved to paint pictures of that amazing experience of tranquility that I felt while being in Nature.
