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“I experiment on my own body and trace it to other people and invite them in.”
“Anything could happen and I could improvise.”
“Sometimes I’ll just throw myself into these situations and experiences and kind of muddle my way through.”
“It’s personal because it’s your body, but it’s about a very visceral connection to the body.”
“The muse will come and find you working.”
“When the dark place that you go to, you don’t know who you are anymore.”
“Friends and family lifting you up when you can’t get through it yourself — that’s how you get through it.”
“Success to me is just being able to keep exploring and to be creating.”
I Love Your Stories is a soulful conversation series hosted by artist and creative guide Hava Gurevich, where art meets authenticity. Each episode invites you into an intimate dialogue with artists, makers, and visionaries who are courageously crafting lives rooted in creativity, purpose, and self-expression.
From painters and poets to healers and community builders, these are the stories behind the work—the moments of doubt, discovery, grief, joy, and transformation. Through honest, heart-centred conversations, Hava explores how creativity can be both a healing force and a path to personal truth.
If you’re an artist, a dreamer, or someone drawn to a more intuitive and intentional way of living, this podcast will remind you that your story matters—and that the act of creating is a sacred, revolutionary act.
[MUSIC]
What happens when your body is both the
subject and the instrument of your art,
and your life becomes the canvas?
Welcome to I Love Your Stories.
I'm your host, Hava Gurvitch, and today
I'm joined by Andrea Koch,
a multidisciplinary artist and educator
based in eastern Long Island.
Andrea works across printmaking,
sculpture, video, and performance.
She shares how early collaborations with
other women artists
sparked her creativity,
and how the spirit of connection still
shapes her work today.
We talk about the evolution of her
teaching, how modeling for other artists
transformed her perspective, and how
motherhood shifted her
art and sense of purpose.
From solo studio practices to
community-based projects,
Andrea's story is a reminder
that creativity can be both deeply
personal and deeply shared.
Now, quick word from our sponsor, and
then we'll get right back to the show.
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Check them out, artstorefronts.com, and
tell them how I sent you.
Welcome back to the podcast.
My guest today is an amazing artist and a
really good friend, Andrea Cook.
Andrea, welcome to the show.
And would you like to just come and tell
us a little bit about
your background as an artist?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thanks for having me on here, Hava.
It's great to see you again.
Yeah, so my background as an artist, I
think a good place that I
often think about starting
is when I really started to find myself
the seeds of who I became as an artist.
I think were when I was in the last years
of my undergrad,
actually, in Miami at FIU.
And I was preparing...
We were preparing for our show, and I was
working on a project...
I started off as a painter and
was doing a lot of portraits.
And that led into me doing my
grandfather, and then
I focused on his hands.
And then next thing I knew, I was casting
his hands, and then I
was casting family and
friends and professors and everybody who
had touched me in some way.
And then simultaneously, while I'm doing
that, I'm getting to
know my fellow students, and
especially a group of
women and I started...
We're talking about as we
prepared for this final show.
I'm sorry, casting as in
sculpture, as making...
Yeah, yeah, I was using cheesecloth and
plaster, and I would drape
it across the hands and then
off and over conversations and dinner.
And then I'd flip them over and I would
press cheesecloth
inside and put a little more
plaster.
So they were like these little shrouds
that were a little belief-like.
Yeah, and then at the same time, it was
all that what goes into making art.
And so I was talking to a bunch of my
friends and we're hanging
out and we're all getting...
We're all making our
work and talking as you do.
And so we ended up making...
Together, we decided to make this giant
cabinet, this oversized
cabinet that would hold all of
our process pieces.
So everything that...
Like our notebooks, our sketchbooks, our
experiments, and we each had a drawer.
Everybody made their own drawer and it
was all made out of found wood.
And each drawer was very different
depending on the artist and
what their process was like.
And my drawer was very messy and it had
lots of poetry, both
mine and other people's.
It had all these little strange
experiments and materials.
And it was...
And that kind of...
I think that that opened up that both
collaborating and opening up the process
of what goes into ultimately making
whatever is shown later as a work.
I think I really started living in that
process was really important to me.
I feel like you are so fortunate that you
had this group of women artists
that you were going through undergrad
with had so much synergy.
Yeah, yeah.
And we were from all over.
I mean, there was a lot of women from
like South America, Peru, Mexico, and it
was really a group of...
And it was the early 90s.
Yeah, it was like 1993, I want to say.
Yeah.
And so it was a time where we had all
these male professors that were like,
"What are you doing?"
So that was undergrad.
Did you go to grad
school right after that?
Like...
No, no.
I moved to Seattle and I knew
I wanted to teach right away.
So I started putting up flyers around
town and started teaching right away.
And then I was also
working as an artist model.
And it was interesting
because I worked in so many...
I worked for a lot of
artists in a lot of classrooms.
And I would become like this...
The fly on the wall, the naked person in
the room who's kind of
invisible at the same time.
And I could...
I learned how to teach really well.
Through doing that.
And then also, I was questioning...
I saw other people
portraying me and what I looked like.
I was thinking, "Well,
how would I portray myself?"
Wow.
And then I started experimenting with
painting with my body.
Painting with my feet and my
hair and my ears and my nose.
It's really fascinating, the modeling.
But also, what were
you teaching at the time?
Were we teaching art?
Yeah.
To what level?
To adults.
It was mostly like...
I mean, something about
Seattle, I think is unique.
At least at that time.
You could just literally put up flyers
all over town and be like,
"I'm teaching a class at the local
community center and people
would show up and I would teach."
Yeah.
Yeah, I was teaching at
the University of Washington.
I had this wonderful program called the
Experimental College.
You could just write up your class and
people would come in and
they'd give you a room.
I was in the science building and I'd
drag all my plaster in.
Whatever we were going to do that day.
The first thing I modeled didn't show up.
I actually sat in the middle of the room
and I just took off my
shoes and I put my foot up.
On the chair, I said, "You're
all going to sculpt my foot."
Everybody circled around and
I thought, "Oh, that works.
That breaks the..."
Yeah. So what got you to...
Was that like after that, you're like,
"Let me take off both shoes off."
And then kind of like strip poker slowly.
But I was like, "How do you go from...
How do you get to that
point where you're like,
"I'm just going to disrobe and have all
these people look at
me from every angle?"
Well, I didn't do
that when I was teaching.
When I was teaching, it was my foot.
Although I think that that was the very
first day I'd ever really taught.
So it certainly taught me that you could
make your way through it.
Anything could happen
and I could improvise.
And yes, I guess the first time I did
take my clothes off in a room,
I remember there's that heightened sense
of like, "Oh my God, I'm naked in front
of all these people."
They can see me from every angle.
But I guess one of the things that I've
learned in my life is that I was young,
I was very shy and I was very quiet, but
I wanted to jump out.
And so sometimes I'll just throw myself
into these situations and experiences
and kind of muddle my way through and
learn kind of by
accident that it's all okay.
Self-part of it.
You knew you wanted to teach.
And then this experience of being a
model, thinking about how others see you,
and then from there really starting to
think more about how you see yourself
or how you would portray yourself and
then actually using your body,
physically using your
body to create that.
That's amazing.
And so you did go to grad school.
I ended up going to graduate school at
SUNY Purchase in New York.
And that was in around, that was like
several years afterwards.
I think when I first
graduated, I just wanted to grow.
I knew I wasn't ready to...
I knew actually that at that
time, if you wanted to teach,
it was thought that that was why you
would go get your graduate.
Well, I'll teach, I'll go
out there for a little while.
I just would go find places that would
let me do an installation in their
windows or something.
And I would experiment.
And then when I was
ready a few years later,
I knew I would eventually probably want
to go to grad school
because I did enjoy
teaching and I wanted to...
Your medium, you did pretty much
everything because I
know you do printmaking.
Yeah.
Sculpture, photography, painting.
I did interviews with video.
Video.
Well, in installations, yeah.
And performance.
You're just an equal opportunity artist.
Restless, very restless.
Yeah, I wanted to...
I'd have an urge to try something or a
vision, I think, would appear.
I'd be like, "I have to do that."
It might not have the skills really to do
it or the text that I would just...
But it sounds like you'd do it
anyway and then figure it out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you have to describe
what your art is about,
I mean, I know we write
dissertations about that.
But just in a few
sentences, some highlights.
If somebody walks into a room
and it has your art on there,
what would you want
them to come away with?
What would you hope that they experience?
Well, I'd hope that they would see
themselves, even though
I'm often using my own body.
But then that's also...
It's almost like I experiment on my own
body and I trace it to
other people and invite them in.
So I think it's this indication.
Yeah.
The older experience, something that I've
experienced visually,
because I'm mainly a visual artist.
And seeing traces of the body, traces of
an experience or a lived life.
It's personal because it's your body, but
that's sort of what I
always get out of it,
is that it's about a very visceral
connection to the body.
You also do...
So you teach?
You still teach?
I teach.
Do you still teach adults?
Yeah.
I've taught every age over the years in
all situations and abilities.
And yeah, I consider myself an educator
of all ages and levels.
And I think, right, I was running an
education program and
developing it at the Watermel
Center for many years.
And then when I left there a few years
ago, I went back to
freelancing that I'm currently
teaching at Suffolk Community College.
I'm teaching college students, often
freshmen or sophomores that
are rather young, very young
adults.
And then I'm doing a visiting artist
residency at a school
that's somebody working with
schoolers.
And I just worked with third and fourth
graders, and we made this
huge project that was about
huge banner cyanotypes with elements in
their drawings and
their bodies in the keys.
Yes, I enjoy it all.
And you're also really active in
community-based projects.
Do you want to talk about that?
Yeah.
So let's see.
When I first moved out to eastern Long
Island, and we were living in
Flanders, and we were near...
We were very close to Riverhead, a town
that's kind of where the forks,
North Fork and the South Fork, need.
It's kind of the gateway to
the two ends of Long Island.
And there were empty windows.
I had this son who was about four or five
at the time, and I
just wanted to get to know
my community in a way.
I was like, "Okay, I
have roots here for now."
And again, I just kind of had this
thought, "Oh, what if I did a project
where I got to work with
invite people from Riverhead and get to
know this town through
the people who live here
and have worked here and have a
connection to here?"
And it was really just word of mouth,
like, "Oh, you should interview this
person or that person."
So I started making my first
video little mini-documentaries.
Yeah, yeah.
And then I would...
And I photographed people's eyes, and
then that was sort of
the entry to the video.
And then I would...
And then actually, I was transferring
their eyes to these
blindfolds that were on fabric.
And then that was sort of what you would
see throughout the
town, where these posters
of me wearing this person's eyes in front
of a site on Main Street
that connected to them.
And then that was like a portal to
discovering more about them
through the QR codes, which
stuck around about this time.
Yeah.
And those still live,
actually, on YouTube now.
Oh, that's fantastic.
So what makes you happy?
What fulfills you?
I think it's probably very similar.
It's when I'm in that
flow of it's coming together.
And it doesn't happen
really all that often for me.
I mean, I think you can set up all the
conditions for it to happen, right?
Whether you're in your studio and you're
at that point where
you've sort of had an idea
and you're sort of investigating, and
then you're kind of
swimming around in it.
And then next thing you
know, you're like in that mode.
For me, it often don't
happen on the press lately.
It's almost like that becomes that
performance space for me,
where I'll have things I'm pressing
and inking up colors.
And then I have a small press that
somebody gave me a number.
It's about 150 years
old, and it's wonderful.
And it's got a big wheel and a small bed,
but it's big enough
that I can kind of like
engage with it.
It's like this partner of mine.
And I can run things through and take
them out the other end
and just I get kind of lost
in that process.
And sometimes it's wonderful because it
flows and it does feel
like all that struggle to
get to where you are at that moment.
The art gods now have like
blessed you in that flow.
And it can happen like
right there in my studio.
Often I think it does happen more when
I'm by myself, creating.
Although it'll happen with others too.
Then I'll take that, "Oh,
could I do this with other people?"
And then sometimes there'll be these
wonderful moments where it will happen.
Sometimes it's teaching too.
It's like the magic
takes hold of everybody.
And you know you're creating something
bigger than what you would do alone.
Or even this most recent project that I
did in the garden with
the natural materials of
this garden and having to
collaborate with nature.
And when it was over and I
thought, "Wow, that was...
Nature is very
frustrating throughout the process."
Because I was doing these big cyanotypes
in the sun and I'd have
to pray for the sun to
come out and the rain not to stay away.
And it didn't always happen and wind
blowing everything around.
And in the end though, there was this
feeling of like, "Wow, it's bigger."
It was bigger than what I
could have imagined on my...
Even still, it was this collaboration
where something larger...
So do you feel that when you're...
It's not like it happens all the time.
Yeah.
And often inspiration strikes.
And by the time I get to my studio, I
can't find it again.
Oh, yeah.
But and sometimes it comes
through while I'm working.
The muse will come and find you working.
I don't remember the expression, but I
actually was doing that today.
I was touching up corners of paintings
that are going in the exhibition.
And so I mixed some black paint with a
little bit of gloss and I was doing that.
And I finished and I
still had some paint.
So then I just grabbed the painting in
progress and started doing stuff.
And next thing I know, two hours have
gone by and I'm painting.
I just suddenly got new inspiration.
And I sometimes forget, but...
Yeah, what a joy to find that.
Yeah, sometimes just doing something
repetitive, that muscle memory.
And then it's like, "Oh,
yeah, I love doing this stuff.
I love using a little brush
and that shiny black paint."
And where else can I put
that shiny black paint?
I know.
It is time often too, right?
You have to know that, "Okay, I can give
myself a little bit of time here."
Because often I'm not an
artist who finds the time.
Yeah, you do every day.
Horrible, I'm it.
So, yeah.
Can you talk about any times in your life
that were sort of like crossroads?
Things that really sort of changed the
course of what you were doing?
Are there situations like that for you?
Yeah, definitely.
When did we first meet
when you were out here?
Because I think that was like a...
I moved out to the Hamptons in 2009.
And I think we met in 2010, 11.
Was I pregnant?
That's why I had just had an thing.
I remember just having a thing and we
would come up with it.
Yeah, do you remember like we were in
that little hot tub section of the pool?
I remember that.
That's what I remember bringing him over
and he was a little toddler and little.
He was very...
Tell me he could swim, you know.
And I think probably, I
was probably very nervous.
But yeah, we met.
How did the motherhood change you?
Yeah, gosh.
Well, it was a challenging time for me.
We were living in Brooklyn in the city
and then my husband and I,
and then he got offered this job out in
Eastern Long Island in
Flanders and to serve the Hamptons.
And so we moved out here and that was
around like 2007, 2008.
And then I shortly got pregnant.
And we had just moved out here.
I was very alone.
I was very solitary.
It was very difficult.
There wasn't...
Now there's a very vibrant arts community
here, but there was still a time when
there wasn't a lot of...
At least I didn't know a lot of...
Well, I think since then
and now there's much...
There's more arts events and things and
there's more than you can...
At the time, it was just a
very isolating time for me.
It was very difficult.
And yeah, and I had a postpartum mania
and depression actually, a year delayed.
So it wasn't immediate, but it came on
almost to a year to the day he was born.
And that was very difficult.
And that was definitely a crossroads.
It was a very dark time.
I didn't think I would
make art again, actually.
I think we met around then, right?
Yeah.
Did art play a role in
recovery or saving you?
Yeah, I think coming through it.
I think coming out of it
and finding myself again.
Remember when you set up that beautiful
studio in the attic?
Yeah.
Yeah. And so you were sort of starting to get
back into it and then you
were going to Brooklyn to print?
Yes.
Okay, so we did meet then.
Yeah, that was around that time.
Yeah, it was...
Yeah.
So yeah, I was printing.
I think it was going back
in the fourth and the...
That I think threw me into that state.
But then definitely when I found myself
again, I had to be creating again.
I just had to be...
Yeah.
That's where I am.
That's who I am.
But when the dark place that you go to,
you don't know who you are anymore.
And it's not a generative place.
But I think that's where family and
friends and people lifting
you up when you can't get
through it yourself or
how you get through it.
And then I started...
Yeah, and there was a time where I would
be in my studio trying to get back to it.
And it was very difficult.
That feeling of it was very uncomfortable
to be in there and
telling myself that I would
get through it.
And I think anytime...
And I talked about the people about this.
When you haven't been in your studio for
a while and you get back
in, it's not like it's like,
"Oh, here we go."
That's not when the news usually...
It's like you got to kind of muddle your
way back through it.
And then you get there eventually through
getting acquainted with
that making world again.
I find that in times like that, and I've
gone through periods
where I may have not been in
the best place mentally.
And I would think to myself, "I wish I
could just turn to art as an escape."
And then I would try and
I just wasn't inspired.
And it sort of made art...
It pushed it further away
as an unattainable thing.
And so I remember thinking, "I don't want
to put that kind of
pressure on my artist self
to be my savior."
But I found when I moved out to the
Hamptons, that was a kind
of art renaissance for me.
Discovering nature, realizing that I'm
actually very comfortable
being alone for long periods
of time and creating work that's more
connected, more immediately
connected to the place where
I am, and finding community, like finding
artists that I could really relate to.
That bond that we had, that was like...
That was where one of the people was
getting me through that time.
Yeah, that was very precious.
It was a back and forth communication
because getting back into it,
sometimes you can just go in and start
painting edges and get back into it.
Sometimes you really need to be around
people who are creative and expressive
and just have that permission given to
you to explore again and
get swept up in that energy.
And I think that when that happens, and
then you have the
opportunity to lead that,
lead that, and be able to
offer that kind of community...
It's out of yourself.
I think maybe because I often, when I am
alone, like solitary in the
studio or those times in my
life, when I am just very... I can be a
very solitary, introspective person.
And on the other hand, when I can get
out, when I am working
with other people or teaching,
it's not about me anymore. I'm just this
vehicle to help other people.
It all goes back to your undergraduate
experience with this
group of women artists.
I'm so inspired by that. When I was an
undergrad, I didn't have that kind of
conceptual thinking yet.
Some of it comes from community, having
people around you who are
similar in a way that you
find a way to connect.
Yeah, well, I went to Florida
International University in
Miami, and one of the things
that was unique about it was there were
students of all ages. It's international.
I mean, there were women of this group of
eight of us that were at
least 15 years older than me.
Oh, okay.
There was one or two women who were
younger than me, so that's
something I already felt.
Yeah, there were women that were...
Wow, it's almost like you had mentors in
some way. Maybe not mentors
for art, but mentors for being
like how to live.
We came from whatever life experience we
had had, and we were
discovering this place together.
That's amazing. What would you say, what
are you most passionate about right now?
Right now.
Well, I'm kind of between things right
now. I'm teaching, I'm
hustling again, because there's
a lot of loss of fun to the arts and paid
students. It's just
kind of jiggling a lot
right now. I'm trying to give myself even
sometimes just half an
hour to an hour in the
studio just where I'm like, "I don't know
what's going to come out
right now, but I need to... "
I don't know what's next, really. I'm in
that place where you're
kind of figuring out what's
next. You might have a little glimmer of
things, but I want to give
myself that time to kind of
experiment.
Do you find that state
exciting or stressful?
Or both?
I guess a little of both, right? It seems
like you were saying that you're
touching up the corners, getting ready
for a show, and at the same time,
experimenting, starting something new. I
think often there's a
lot of that overlap, right?
There is.
You have to go in a few weeks. Now I'm
starting to think, "Well,
what would I show?" So I have to
kind of pull some work out and think
about that and then get it ready to put
up. At the same time,
I'm experimenting really with what might
come next. I'm very
excited because I have my first
little book. This is what I've been
working on for two years.
Oh, that's amazing.
That was a lot of work.
Can you hold it up?
It's called "The Long Two."
"The Long Two" for the
World. That's amazing.
Is this a book that people can find?
Where can they find this book?
Yeah. Well, this is the proof. I did it
through this website Blurb.
Okay. So it's all published.
Yeah. It'll be accessible there. It's all
a record of the project I did
a year ago at Bridge Gardens
with the Parrish Art Museum. It has
curators forward. I
write about the project.
And the process of that project and
getting to know the gardens and how I
made the work and how
it changed me. Then there's a beautiful
essay by Serge Levy, who is a
photographer and writer
about the work. It has
all these images of...
That's amazing.
...work that.
Congratulations. Oh,
that's a huge achievement.
I just got that this morning.
That is exciting.
Yeah. So that was... Yeah.
Where can people find you? Where can they
find your work? Where can
they find more about you?
There's my website, AndreaCoat.com. And
then my Instagram is AndreaCoatArt.
I love to just connect with people. So on
my website, it says,
"Contact if you want to come by the
studio. Let me know." I do enjoy that.
Final question for you. And I feel like
you kind of answered it, but
how would you define success for you now?
And how has it changed over time?
I mean, success to me is just being able
to keep exploring and to be creating.
So I'm not... I don't know that I'm very
ambitious as far as a career
goes, except that it's nice to
be able... This project wouldn't have
come to me if somebody
hadn't invited me to do a project,
but then opened up a whole world and new
ideas and new
opportunities that I never would have
envisioned this project before. So that's
exciting. So I don't know that I always
have the visions for
different ideas that kind of percolate
around, but I think it's just the
opportunities to create
and discover new facets of yourself, of
your work. Yeah, so it's just
being able to keep creating.
And that's pretty much
been consistent for you.
But I don't know. It doesn't feel like...
Because most of the time,
it just feels like a juggle.
Headlights. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah.
Well, that's amazing. Best of luck. Yeah,
let's definitely connect
and have a chat without it
being recorded. Yeah, it's wonderful to
connect and explore these.
Being an artist together.
Mm-hmm. Your journey. Yeah. Thank you so
much. Oh, thank you, Hava.