In this episode of I Love Your Stories, host Hava Gurevich talks with multidisciplinary artist and educator Andrea Cote, who works across printmaking, sculpture, video, and performance. Andrea shares how early collaborations with women artists shaped her creative path, how modelling for other artists transformed her understanding of herself, and how motherhood changed her art and sense of purpose. The conversation moves through her teaching journey, community-based projects, and what it means to find flow, resilience, and connection through art.

Andrea Cote is an artist and educator whose practice includes printmaking, sculpture, performance, and video.
Her work often uses her own body as subject and instrument, inviting viewers to find connection through traces of lived experience.
Andrea teaches across all ages and abilities, currently at Suffolk Community College, and leads community-based projects throughout eastern Long Island.

Website: andreacote.com

Instagram: @AndreaCoteArt

Show Notes

00:00 – Introduction
Hava introduces Andrea and previews their conversation on art, collaboration, and creativity.

02:00 – Early artistic roots
Andrea reflects on her undergraduate years at FIU in Miami: painting portraits, casting her grandfather’s hands, and collaborating with fellow women artists on a shared cabinet installation of process works.

07:00 – Teaching and modelling in Seattle
Andrea begins teaching community art classes while working as an artist’s model, observing others’ portrayals of her and experimenting with using her body in her own art.

12:00 – Graduate studies and artistic expansion
She later attends SUNY Purchase and explores sculpture, printmaking, video, performance, and installation — following vision and curiosity across mediums.

17:00 – What she hopes viewers experience
Andrea hopes her audience “sees themselves,” even when her body is the subject, emphasizing connection and shared experience.

20:00 – Teaching all ages
Andrea discusses her education work — from young students to college classes — and how teaching fuels her creativity.

25:00 – Community projects on Long Island
She describes her Riverhead video portrait project featuring residents’ eyes and stories, connecting art to place through public installations.

31:00 – Finding flow
Andrea talks about losing herself in the creative process, printing on her 150-year-old press, and the joy of artistic “flow.”

37:00 – Nature and collaboration
Creating cyanotypes in the garden and working with natural forces — sunlight, wind, and rain — as collaborators.

42:00 – Crossroads and motherhood
Andrea recalls moving from Brooklyn to eastern Long Island, experiencing postpartum mania and depression, and finding her way back to art.

50:00 – Recovery and rediscovery
She reflects on the role of friendship, family, and creative community in healing and reconnecting with her practice.

58:00 – Continuing evolution
Andrea shares details about her book The Long Two, documenting her project with the Parrish Art Museum and Bridge Gardens.

01:03:00 – Defining success
“Success is being able to keep exploring and to be creating.”

Memorable Quotes

“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.”

Sponsor Mention

This episode features a sponsor message for Art Storefronts, a platform that supports artists with e-commerce websites, marketing tools, and a learning community.
artstorefronts.com