Ande began to draw animals as soon as she could hold a crayon. However, her path to becoming a painter was not a direct one. An intense interest in animals led to a career in veterinary medicine. She practiced veterinary medicine and raised two children as a single parent in Santa Fe, NM.

   

    "My clinic was close enough to Canyon Road that I could go there on my lunch hour. I would wander through galleries, muttering to myself, 'I want to do that!' But my life didn't have room for art at that time."

   

    Ironically, Ande did not become an artist until she left Santa Fe. After her children had flown the nest, she sold her clinic and house in Santa Fe and moved to rural Kansas to marry a college volleyball coach she had met on Match.com. It was a courageous move to trade the Land of Enchantment for the Land of Oz. Ande also decided that her brave new life in Kansas was going to involve art. During her dozen years in Kansas, Ande's art career took off. She and her husband moved to Boise, ID in 2020. 

 

    Ande's art education has been largely through trial and error, extensive interlibrary loan use, and internet surfing. Her primary media so far have been oil pastel, and acrylic mixed media. She has done considerable exploration of ways to incorporate fabrics into her art.

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    "I have always loved patterns and textures of fabric, and over the years I have done quite a bit of costume design and sewing, which resulted in a rather large inventory of unused fabric that I have hauled around the country. It was sort of inevitable that I would end up using fabric in my art!"

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    Ande began selling her paintings online in 2013, and her work has been purchased by collectors all over the USA and Canada, as well as South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. In 2016, Ande made the decision to quit her part time veterinary job, and devote herself full time to painting.  She has been concentrating primarily on large scale works since that time.

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