Andrea Mulder-Slater

By Andrea Mulder-Slater   When I make a painting, I am either looking at something (a landscape, a coffee cup, a house…) or - in the case of my abstracts - I am thinking about a place (the ocean, the forest, the city…).  However, the inspiration for the Sight Unseen series came from a very different place. 

 by Andrea Mulder-Slater Yesterday, I was putting the finishing touches on the fourth of a series of paintings I’ve been working on over the past several weeks.    I have been really pumped about these new works, and was looking forward to sharing the off-beat story behind how they came to be.    What I'm trying to say is, I was feeling pretty jazzed. So much so, I even took a selfie.   

by Andrea Mulder-Slater They say dreams are when our minds sort through painful emotional experiences, and by dreaming, our brains work out solutions to problems we didn’t even know we had.    Several months after my dad died, I had two dreams that gave me strength during a pretty dark time. 

by Andrea Mulder-Slater   I bought this apron at a garage sale when I was in my last year of art school.    It was a warm fall day and my mom and I had taken a walk through a subdivision located just behind where my parents owned an audio store in Barrie Ontario.

 by Andrea Mulder-Slater   The house was two stories high with big, boxy rooms, low pile carpet and very little furniture which meant our voices echoed every time any of us spoke.    There were what seemed like 10 bedrooms on the second floor, and in the basement was a barn full of animals, resulting in the entire house smelling of hay and horses.    It was our first night in the place and I was asleep, in a room on my own, when I heard and smelled what I thought was a goat at the foot of my bed.   

 by Andrea Mulder-Slater       Ten things I will not do.    1) Drink booze.   I once threw up on a security guard's foot at an outdoor concert. I was a teenager. Drinking just didn't hold any appeal after that.    2) Eat raw meat/fish.   Um, enough said.   3) Stop loving chocolate.   Dark chocolate is a source of iron so I'm basically harming myself if I don't eat it.  

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I am eating string cheese while Post Malone’s Circles plays on Spotify. I am safe. My skin is light. Today I am privileged. My daughter asks me why some people hate others simply because of the colour of their skin. “I don’t know,” is the not the only answer I can give her.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater We are living in interesting times… Smack dab in the middle of a pandemic is a place most of us never expected to be and yet, here we are. Make no mistake. COVID-19 is a threat. But, the hysteria surrounding the pandemic is becoming as dangerous as the virus itself.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater After she had spent several hours at the horse barn on a frosty December evening, I offered to make my daughter a hot chocolate to warm her up. Because she has food allergies, making a drink like this for my kiddo is a bit more complicated than simply pouring boiling water over a packet of Carnation instant mix. Instead, there’s a process which involves harvesting raw cocoa, sifting purified icing sugar and slow cooking organic milk all while burning sage and standing on one foot. Ok, well that’s not actually true. But, I do keep my daughter safe by mixing the right amounts of allergen-free sugar with allergen-free cocoa and allergen-free milk and bringing all of it to a boil in a pot on the stove. My point here is, once I’ve made a cup of hot chocolate, I need a nap. And a bag of chips.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I drove into town with my mom to do some banking.  Because it was after hours, the plan was to use the machine to deposit a cheque and withdraw $200 to pay a guy for doing some work on my husband's truck. It was a simple errand. I went through the doors and walked over to the machine. Holding a cheque in one hand, I reached for the deposit envelope with my other hand. Only, there were no envelopes.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater One morning when my daughter was 3, she and I were walking along the seashore at low tide, searching for what the waves had brought in. As we stepped carefully around the rocks - our rubber boots sinking into the squishy sand beneath our feet - we discovered seaweed, sand dollars, crabs, sea urchins, periwinkles and even a starfish or two. “Can we take them home? Pleeeease?”

by Andrea Mulder-Slater "Having that pool skimmer in there really complicates things." The plumber was bewildered, and he hadn’t yet discovered the paint roller extension pole. It had been 24 hours since I noticed a puddle in the basement. The source of the leak was unwelcome, but repairable, according to my husband because a trickle from the sewage cleanout pipe was nothing a plunger couldn’t fix. The plan was to remove the cap, eliminate whatever obstacle might be impeding the flow to the septic tank, replace the lid and carry on. A gentle twist was all it took. From there, it was like watching a WWII submarine movie with saltwater gushing through breached pipes, drenching the actors struggling to shut valves with nothing more than wrenches and dangerously good looks.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater My mother and I were sitting in the magazine lounge of a library we had never been in before. We were waiting for my daughter to learn how to play chess because when you homeschool, you enroll your kids in strategic board game workshops led by cheerful retirees. It’s in the handbook. Fifteen minutes in, I noticed a little black fluff on the water bottle wedged in the outer pocket of my backpack. I could have left it alone but my phone battery was dying so I was looking for something else to do.

In addition to painting the land and sea in waterco lor , oil and acrylic, I also create abstract colorfields, coffeecolors, mixed media paintings, pottery and floorcloths. I received my Fine Arts Diploma from Georgian College and did my BFA coursework at Thompson Rivers University. Below is a snapshot of the kind of work I do including abstracts, coffee paintings (they are PAINTED WITH COFFEE), and seascapes (both in watercolour and acrylic) I welcome commissions at: andrea[at]mulderslater[dot]com      

By Andrea Mulder-Slater I was born with a full head of hair. I’m talking about the kind of tufts that would look right at home in an advertisement for baby hair gel... if babies used hair gel. Looking back, it’s entirely possible my penchant for hair product first began when – as a toddler – I styled my locks with oatmeal. By the time I could ride a bike, the only way to contain my mop was a tidy, at-home-mullet, courtesy of mom. Fortunately, as a kid, I had no real concept of what it meant to look good. In fact, rummaging through old family photographs, one might assume I grew up in a house without mirrors. Or reflective surfaces of any kind.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater Minimalism is hard. And yet, it’s all the rage. I mean, everybody’s either doing it, or thinking about doing it. This includes dyed-in-the-wool hoarders, forward-thinking hamsters, and anyone who lives in a tiny house. Even I’ve ( almost) embraced the trend. For example, I know people who have watched Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things on Netflix and I own The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up . I’ve also held all of my belongings and waited for them to bring me joy. (And let me just say, Marie Kondo, that’s a lot of pressure to put on a pair of 99 cent socks rescued from the depths of the last chance sale bin at Old Navy.)

by Andrea Mulder-Slater Every once in a while, I lose my mind. And then, I buy glitter. I never know what will trigger the purchase. Sometimes it’s hearing a Depeche Mode song at the grocery store while I’m picking up string cheese. Other times it’s the absence of coffee cream in my refrigerator. Mostly, it’s nostalgia - or amnesia - brought on by lack of sleep. And Pinterest.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater A few summers ago, my 90-year-old neighbour was over for a visit when she spotted a list I had left on the table. “You are far less reserved than you appear,” she said. “I can see it in your handwriting.” Find out exactly how I feel about cursive in the classroom, by reading an article I wrote for CBC. Read it here...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I grew up in the 1990s. Ok, I also grew up in the 1980s. The thing is — when I was a kid in the 1970s, money was tight and we didn't have a ton of extra cash available for buying store-bought treats. Cakes were reserved for birthdays (and were always homemade), ice cream was a once or twice a year delicacy and the closest I came to Popsicles were the delicious frozen chunks of apple juice nestled in our ice cube trays.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I’m an oatmeal girl. I start my days filling up on a bowl full of hot steel cut oats, flavoured with a touch of salt and butter. Sometimes I get wild and crazy and throw on a drizzle of honey, a handful of raisins and a few almonds. My daughter – on the other hand – is not an oatmeal girl. At least, she isn’t one anymore. As a baby she gobbled up the stuff, but that was before she discovered she had options. And while her breakfasts today are nutritious (fruit, vegetables, yogurt, cheese), I’ve always hoped that her love of oatmeal would return. Here’s why…