Cara Hines is an expressive abstract artist best known for her extemporaneous work in encaustic, mixed media, and site installation, as well as her penchant for working with eyes closed. In her previous life, she was an interior designer who mixed sleek contemporary with reclamations in a sophisticated layering of materials, color, and texture. She has also been known to capture photographic images and write articles, stories, and poems, some of which make their way into her art.Hines started life as a precocious, barefoot artist in the small Texas Panhandle town of Childress, the daughter of a farmer/rancher and a teacher. She graduated from Texas Tech University with a Bachelor of Interior Design, and worked in the profession for more than 15 years. Her shift from designer back to artist was born of a desire to be less exacting and more spontaneous, as well as a deep, primal longing to explore the depths of emotions and human experience that are inexpressible through language alone. Her rural agricultural roots, love of nature, extensive self-analysis, as well as her background in contemporary design all coalesce to inform her work. Hines is the founder and principal of MixHaus Gallery in Comfort, Texas, which features mixed media and mixed-discipline contemporary artists primarily from Texas. She lives in Comfort with her partner, Ernest, and their Australian Shepherd, Ginger.