Andrea Fernández Rodriguez, multidisciplinary artist and founder of "La Platanera", a space to create and help people who come to rediscover their creativity. In a place as special as this island where Andrea grew up: On Illa de Arousa, in Galicia, Spain's most western part.
Andrea turned her grandparents' fishing tackle storage room into a creative experimentation hub where she invites people from all over the world to participate at one of her workshops: Whether it's for her Cyanotype Workshops, her Textile Printing Workshops, or her Botanical Textile Screen Printing Workshops.
1. What is the art you do?
I always say that my thing is storytelling. I do it in many ways:
Through illustration, photography, video and writing.
2. How did you come to your art?
It came naturally. As a child I liked to draw, I was attracted to images, to stories.I had a way of observing the world that stopped at the small, the everyday. In the end, what I wanted to do ended up finding me. : )
3. What is the reason why you continue to practice your art?
I think the most important thing is to be in love with what you do. At the moment I still am.
4. What has been the highlight of your artistic career?
I think each stage has its moments. This year has been very special because besides having been able to finish my grandparents' house with the construction of the new space in O Faiado, I've done some very important illustration work that I've enjoyed a lot and my first novel has been published with a publishing house that I really like.
5. When do you feel most productive?
Mostly in the mornings.
6. What or who inspires you?
Nature, villages, conversations with old people, the light at sunset, the sea.
7. In what “little” things do you find the most joy?
Living in a village that is an island, I'm used to looking at life with different eyes. Here the rhythm is different, there is no rush of the city. People greet each other in the street, there is a community life.
The natural environment, having the people I love close by, living in peace, doing what I like, enjoying a good read while listening to the sea lapping against the rocks. That is the greatest happiness.
8. Do you have any vision or goal you are working on?
To continue illustrating and writing.
9. What do you do when you feel “stuck”?
I go to see the sea. Being in nature always helps me to relativize problems and stay with what's important.
10. How do you deal with setbacks?
Day by day. I always try to live in the present, without anticipating.
11. What do you do when you feel lonely?
Call my friends, meet up with my family, go for a walk and be with the island.
12. What is your favorite feeling?
Love in all its extensions. Not only love for your partner. Love for what you do, love for your friends, love for the land where you are.
13. What is your least favorite feeling?
Fear.It is an emotion that paralyzes, that makes you doubt yourself, that destroys everything that is close to you.
It is inevitable sometimes to feel something like fear when you face something new or something you like too much. But getting stuck in that emotion is horrible.
It blocks you.
All Photo credits: Mei Morales González
Thanks for taking the time to respond to all of our questions we had for you, Andrea!
If you want to meet, create and learn with Andrea, visit her at "La Platanera" on Illa de Arousa, Galicia, in Spain, and join her for one of her workshops!
Hasta la próxima,
Kat and Team subcultours