Andrea Macias

Artist Andrea Macias (b.1988) is not afraid to claim her day dreamer status. As a child she spun fictitious tales in her head that took her to space and back. Her imagination was so vivid that she could forget she lived in real life some times. She meticulously created little worlds out of modeling clay, as well as mud. Her first day of 6th grade involved a session of mud play (she was in an imaginary bakery) so intense that school security had to come find her because she’d missed the end of recess bell. The ability to day dream gives her warm thoughts about her early life, which was often fraught with teachers that let her down.

Macias is a self-described “border kid”, living in Juarez, Mexico, but attended school in El Paso, Texas. Each morning (starting as early as 4am), her VERY dedicated mother would shuttle Andrea and her older brother over the border. Sometimes it could take an hour, sometimes more. The family had to switch schools multiple times over the years, readjusting to new staff and classmates each time. Macias still thinks her acute sense of direction comes from these years. At age 12, she and her close-knit family of three moved to the US and they settled into a less rigorous travel routine. She did well in school, pulling A’s in high school, even though she also worked (and liked to party a bit). Her top 10% class status and hard work paid off, and she received a full scholarship to the University of Texas in Austin.

Macias attended UT for a degree (and triple major) in psychology, women’s and gender studies and anthropology (specialization in archeology). With her Bachelors in hand in 2010, she turned her attention to Chicago. She knew she needed to be in a big city since jobs were scarce across the country after the start of the recession in 2008. The city had always been appealing to her, and part of the attraction were the four seasons, as opposed to desert life in Texas. Macias still doesn’t mind digging out her car in wintertime (along with a few of her neighbors’)!

After finding her footing in Chicago, Macias rolled several part time jobs into full time work for a real estate agency. She was then recruited to one of the larger companies, and spent her time getting to know people and helping them find homes for almost a decade. She herself found a wonderful condo in Chicago’s Albany Park, a few years before the area became the next best place to own a home. Her husband Jake and 9-month-old son reside there with her, but they plan on moving down a few blocks into a cozy house soon. Macias now works in the non-profit world, helping organizations find alternative revenue streams that are unattached to donors and underlying politics. This lets them use the funding in line with their values, and to the benefit of the communities they serve.

In 2017, Macias got a creative itch she just couldn’t seem to scratch. She started painting after seeing the Obama “We The People” campaign posters by Shepard Fairey. The image that caught her eye was of a Latinx woman with a flower in free flowing hair- staring confidently forward into the future. She recreated it, but wasn’t satisfied with the process. After hemming and hawing over joining a ceramics studio, Macias took the leap (after some encouragement from a co-worker) and joined the beginner’s wheel throwing class at LSPS-LC. The first moment she connected eyes with classmate Lorena Montero, she knew they’d be good friends. Together they took on the first lesson, with Montero stating they couldn’t go wrong because pottery making was “in their blood” (earthenware vessels sprung up in 2300-1500 BCE, in what is now modern day Mexico). According to Macias, not only did they fail, but they failed spectacularly. To the point that neither wanted to continue trying to center or open or touch clay anymore. Studio Instructor Meg Biddle convinced Montero to try the Friday night hand building class, and Macias followed. To this day, Montero and Macias time their studio visits to coincide, so they can catch up and be creative together.

It took a while for Macias to warm up to the studio environment. Initially she felt like an outsider (it was not as welcoming as she had hoped), but slowly a few fellow artists made connections and she felt more seen. Her hand building abilities quickly translated to plates with colorful fruit patterns, green Monstera leaf patterns and many vessels with forms of blooming flowers. Macias thinks the floral connection reaches back to living with her grandmother, who grew roses in buckets because the soil was just too dry to support them otherwise.

LSPS-LC hosted its first Pottery of Protest exhibition shortly after Macias joined the studio. The show, which is now in its fifth year, features ceramic artwork created by studio students on a variety of subjects that hit home with them. Macias formed a piece depicting Meliponine bees, a type of bee used for honey productions for hundreds of generations. The bees, which have trouble surviving due to pesticides and habitat loss, were recently found in Cuba (a miracle!). The bees’ history and resilience inspired Macias to create an interactive sculpture featuring a hive that breaks off into smaller pieces. When the work hangs on the wall, the bees are upright and healthy, when on a flat surface, they are on their sides and dying. Macias was recognized for her thoughtful piece during POP, and it made her feel like an artist for the first time in decades. The feeling was overwhelming for her, but also wonderful. Macias has created thought-provoking work for each subsequent show, taking on such subjects as the (many) unsolved murders of Native American women in the US as well as the outright and verbal discrimination she faced during the Trump years. With POP5 set to run this August, Macias has already thought through and executed parts of the work she hopes to present. Before Macias gave birth to her son, she was mulling over the idea of an artwork that illustrates the vast difference in mortality rates for birthing mothers of different ethnicities. After a very difficult birthing experience herself, she resolved to make the work for the next POP. The piece will feature pipes of water that run down onto different female icons made of wet clay. The amount of water that wears away each icon depends on what background a person is from. A white woman pouring water into the top of the piece would not see her designated icon wear away quickly. A woman of color emptying a cup of water into the piping would watch it wash over her figure. The alarming rate of the icon washing away is a direct link to how many women unnecessarily die in childbirth in one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Macias is looking forward to creating more work with deeper meaning, but also just being in the studio with friends. She’s been getting back in the ceramics saddle (after a few months break to recover from having her son), each piece getting better and easier to make. Currently she’s working on some casserole baking dishes her husband wants to use. They’ll have a place in her new home, along with many of the other pieces she’s created at the studio.