Inspiring Women: Andrea Gal
This blog was originally written by Madeleine Villa.
She’s a record selling singer, a bartender, plus model, pianist, typist, baker and aspiring makeup artist. It’s safe to say that she wears many hats each and everyday, and while busy she wouldn’t want it any other way!
This is Andrea Gal’s inspiring story of creativity, loss and success.
Growing Up
Andrea described her home life growing up as “a very wholesome upbringing, a happy and safe home.” She, her brother and sister were homeschooled on their family farm growing up but later transferred to public school. In her high school years Andrea became very involved in the arts, acting in plays, singing, writing short stories and even dabbling in photography! She was also incredibly involved in her youth group at church along with her sister. They were both very good singers, award winning in fact! They performed at the Youth Talent Search at the Western Fair, there were over 500 acts, Andrea and her sister won first place!
Loss
Nine years ago Andrea and her siblings lost not only one parent, but both to illness only four months apart from one another. “It was the most shocking and devastating year of my life, and the aftermath that comes with not only losing your parents, but losing that home base, losing the ones who care about you and all you have going on in your life, losing the safety of the world lasts a very long time.” Said Andrea. While it was, to this day the hardest year of her life, Andrea says that when people ask her how she got through it she says that she had to “surround [herself] with beautiful and lovely people and things that made [her] laugh and made [her] feel some joy again in life.” One of those things was singing and writing through her grief. It took time before she was able to process her grief enough to put herself back out there but eventually she wrote a song about her mother called “Not Really Gone.” The song reached a huge audience of 70,000 strong! What was most humbling to Andrea was just how many people reached out to her to tell her how helpful the song was for them suffering like her through loss.
Hobbies and Work
As mentioned earlier Andrea wears many hats during her day-to-day! Her longest-standing job has been as a typist for hard of hearing college students, which means she goes into class with them and types their notes for them. “This job has always been the thing that keeps me afloat financially, but also gives me time and flexibility to do the creative things that I love and that give me purpose.” Said Andrea.
What is truly inspiring about Andrea is how she has turned many of her hobbies into jobs! Something many people dream of doing. For example she loves bartending “it makes me so happy to create a perfect drink and make someone happy, to make them feel at home, to make them laugh as well while I serve them.” So she does it part time on the weekends.
Another passion is modelling and doing makeup, “I love how putting on a beautiful outfit and doing your makeup in a way that shines YOU, can really express who you are and make you feel sexy or gorgeous or sweet or chill or whatever it is you want to feel in it.” Andrea has competed in plus pageants even winning first in Best Talent! That’s when she was first introduced to Henkaa as they were sponsoring the event. “ I absolutely loved how the dresses fit EVERYONE: no matter size or colouring, hairstyle or body shape – there was a way to wrap us up like a beautiful present in a Henkaa dress and make us feel stunning.” Since then Andrea has done plenty of modelling for Henkaa and you can even catch Andrea in our most recent set of dress tutorials!
Most notably Andrea is an amazing singer, she has recorded three albums that can be bought on iTunes. Her proudest creation to date was her album called: “Beauty From Ashes.” The album’s theme is based on one of her favorite bible verses ”that talks about how when life comes through with fire, and you go through that fire, you can then trade the ashes for beauty. It’s kind of like how gold has to go through a refining process with fire: the beauty and shine of the gold cannot shimmer until it has been through that process.”
Future Aspirations
While it would seem that Andrea has a full plate, she can’t help but take on even more as her creativity continues to grow and evolve. Her next endeavour? Vlogging. She describes her vlog as “a live women’s lifestyle magazine.” focussing on her life in regards to makeup, music, bartending, inspirational messages, plus size fashion and travelling! You can look forward to Andrea’s vlog titled “A Gal’s Lifestyle” in December!
While it is easy to feel inspired by Andrea she sometimes finds it hard to believe. People have told her that she inspires them because of “the way I connect with people, for finding myself and learning to love every inch of my full figure, for the way I write my feelings, for getting through not only losing my parents so closely together but then a divorce as well, and not just surviving, but thriving and laughing and being excited about life. If that can help someone else to see that they are worthy, beautiful, made for something wonderful, that the best is yet to come, and that there is light at the end of those dark, dark places in life, then I am happy.”