Brian Andreas

Brian Andreas (born 1956 in Iowa City, Iowa) is an American writer, painter, sculptor and publisher. Most notable of his works are the StoryPeople objects he makes using salvaged wood from old rural homesteads. These mixed-media works include a short story that focuses on a moment or a memory, and the deliberately crude folk-art-like shapes display bright yet soothing colors and shadowy amorphous faces to go along with the simple, declarative language of the prose.

Andreas' artistic explorations eventually led to a wide-ranging array of works, from the publication of nine books, to the production of handcrafted furniture and home accent pieces. In 1994, the diversity of his interests produced the foundation of his StoryPeople company.

StoryPeople:
With his wife's words and two young sons as motivation, Andreas went out into his backyard and pulled a weathered board from the fence and began to play with the boards and place little stories and some color onto them. Soon, shaped as 'people,' others became interested in purchasing them. Of the results of the fence-board experiments, it was eventually written that "he discovered the StoryPeople waiting to be carved out of rough barn board, painted in bright colors, and hand-stamped with their individual stories."

Of his work, Andreas says, "I like art that admits to being a part of life. The moments I have with my friends and family are really all that I need. I like to take them and weave them into stories that are filled with laughter and music and lunacy. And they are mostly true, but I'm not telling which parts. . ."