by Keija K. Parssinen

June 11,2010

For Andrea Jira, former membership director at the Columbia Chamber of Commerce, becoming an artist was more of inevitability than a choice.

As a child growing up in Kansas City, Jira’s first gifts were a pottery wheel and a calligraphy set, which she received before knowing how to write cursive. By heritage, she is Mexican and Spanish, and her parents took their children to festivals and fairs that sparked Jira’s early imagination. Today, her mother is a dedicated mosaic artist and furniture painter, and Jira’s sister creates charcoal sketches and also makes jewelry.

From that foundation, Jira has built a life around art, specifically the making of bold jewelry from materials ranging from fine silver to bronze to clay to glass and fabric.

“About 15 years ago, I went into a store and saw a pair of earrings and said, ‘I can do that,’” Jira said of her first moment of inspiration.

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