Andrea Diane Cook

In Indigenous culture, the current generation is encouraged to live and act in ways that will uphold the quality of life and cultural vitality for future generations. Andrea Cook, Ts’áak’ KáJúu (Singing Eagle), is the first woman in her family to embrace the challenging art form of carving. The lineage of Haida Master Carvers in her family includes Dwight Wallace and his son John Wallace whose work is globally renowned. Growing up in the small isolated community of Hydaburg, Cook was raised with a reverence for the traditional arts. Totem poles, canoes, halibut hooks, masks, and regalia are all crafted in her community by hand to be used, danced, fished, and honored by this proud Haida village. She began practicing Formline from a young age and is drawn to this art because of the way it has represented her people’s stories, history, and worldview long before the Haida language was adapted into the written form of Xaad Kil. Today, Cook is a student at the University of Alaska Southeast where she began studying under Tlingit master carver Wayne Price in 2018. With Wayne’s guidance, Cook has made carving tools, bentwood boxes, feast bowls, spoons, panels, and her first mask. She believes that each piece has a unique spirit and is particularly passionate about continuing to practice and understand the art form mastered by her ancestors.