"Her photos captured everyday people, community gatherings, storefronts and the beauty of a neighborhood that was later devastated by urban renewal," local writer and speaker Aisha Adams wrote in a Facebook post honoring Clark's legacy. "Her archive is one of the few remaining records of a Black community that once thrived here."
Born in 1945, Clark grew up in Massachusetts and moved to Asheville in the 1960s to connect with her father's family. She soon learned that her grandfather, a formerly enslaved man, helped build many of the city's most recognizable structures, including the Young Men's Institute (YMI), St. Matthias Episcopal Church and the Asheville Masonic Temple. Despite his major contributions, Miller's name was largely missing from the city's historical record.
"You've got Thomas Wolfe, Thomas Wolfe, Thomas Wolfe. But you don't have any statues of James Vester Miller," Clark told Xpress in 2021. "They should have taken [the Vance Monument] and put him on that obelisk. He may have built it anyway."
In response, Clark created the James Vester Miller Historic Walking Trail, which launched on Juneteenth 2021. The self-guided tour highlights several of Miller's surviving works and tells the story of his career and legacy in Asheville's development.
Clark is also known for her photographs of East End neighborhood, once a center of Black community life. Before the area was demolished during urban renewal projects, she captured more than 200 images showing its homes, churches and residents, mostly taken around 1968 -1971. These photos were featured in the exhibit The Photography of Andrea Clark: Remembering Asheville's East End Community at the Asheville Museum of History earlier this year.
In 2020, the Historic Resources Commission of Asheville & Buncombe County named Clark the recipient of its annual Sondley Award for helping spur interest in local history.
"You have touched the hearts of more people than can possibly imagine," the James Vester Miller Historic Walking Trail wrote in an Instagram post honoring Clark's life. "Your legacy will live on."