Andrea Heckman is a visual artist, academic, photographer and filmmaker who began working with photography and fiber arts in California in the 1970s.  In 1975, she moved to Taos to pursue her art. She was represented by the Hills Gallery (Santa Fe NM) and Clay and Fiber (Taos NM); Roche Bobois (Los Angeles CA), Ansel Adams Gallery (Yosemite CA), and Coast Gallery (Big Sur) 

By 1979, she was a dedicated world traveler. That year she started annual trips to Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia for the next forty-two years. In 1981, she began working as a trekking and culture guide for Wilderness Travel, an international adventure/travel company. Her guiding, as well as her eventual academic career, gave her unique access to Andean mountains, people, festivals, and arts. She researched textiles and how Quechua people weave their stories into cloth. Her travel adventures expanded to include Nepal, Tibet, India, Turkey, Morocco, Ireland and Mexico where she continues searching for fine textiles and art for her store, Andean Software (Taos NM). 

While pursuing an academic career, she completed her PhD in Latin American Studies in Anthropology and Art History after living in Ausangate, Peru in 1996 on a Fulbright-Hayes Dissertation Fellowship. In 1997, she began teaching for the University of New Mexico. She speaks Spanish and Quechua. Her book, Woven Stories: Andean Textiles and Rituals (2003: UNM Press), won the 2006 John Collier Jr. National Award for Excellence in Visual Anthropology. She served on the Board for the Society of Visual Anthropology of the American Anthropology Association and co-Chaired their Visual Research Conference.  

She is also an award-winning documentarian. Her films include Ausangate (2006), Crossing Bridges (2006), and Mountain Sanctuary (2009), Weaving Traditions of Northern NM (2011); Bon: Mustang to Menri (2011); Woven Stories: Weaving Traditions of Northern NM, Behind the Mask (2011) Bon in Dolpo (2014) and Bon and the West (2020). She calls Taos, New Mexico her home.

Films \ Books \ Photos