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Lyndia Terre
- born in Montréal, Québec in 1946
- father emigrated from Russia to Montréal, Québec in 1913
- B.A., McGill University, Montréal, Québec (1967); M.F.A.
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island (1969)
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Lyndia Terre's etchings and drawings have explored
feminist Judaic spirituality, as evidenced in her series Biblical Women: Redrawing the
Stories, produced at the height of the women's movement in the 1970s as an affirmation
of women's strength, a reflection of a time of hope and change. The series began as an
exhibition suggested by her rabbi for the High Holidays, and as Terre began researching
Biblical stories for it, "I was surprised to find that a majority of texts were about
women: Sarah, Rebekah, Hannah, Miriam . . . . These women began to haunt my consciousness
. . . . As I read and reread I was pleased at how much text existed that I had never been
taught. My journey had begun." More recently, Terre has published several books of
poetry and drawing such as A Year in the Wetlands (1997) and The Trail of
Caledon (1997). The Trail of Caledon reflects Terre's environmental concerns as
it contains her drawings of the flowers and plants found in this natural habitat of rural
Ontario. A Year in the Wetlands is a book along similar lines, a series of nature
etchings recording Terres experience of the wetlands of Huntley Meadows in Virginia.
Although this work on nature would not seem to reflect an exploration of Judaic migration,
Terre has connected the two in the poem, It's All About Fear: "It's about
making wholes from the fragments," she writes, "It's about the missing parts./
It's about never being good enough/ even at your best./ It's about the dead./ It's about
living only for the future/ and not believing it will ever come./ It's about desperately
wanting gardens/ and to put down roots." In To Celebrate with Light (1997),
Terre was inspired by her memories of the Israeli landscape and the Jewish quarter of
Prague to incorporate Hebrew lettering and Jewish symbols into a book of poetry and
drawing. Filled with blank spaces for the readers own responses, the book's
introduction reads: "This book, created from the rhythms and shapes of Jewish
celebrations, Hebrew letters, the varied landscapes of Israel, and the patterns of the
natural world, invites you into a dialogue with your own spirituality." The etching Prague,
Old New Synagogue explores the artist's sense of loss and displacement, after seeing
one of the last vestiges of a once vibrant Jewish community. This is also expressed in her
poem, Prague: "Was I not present in the space/ when they talked the 'legends
of the Jews'/ by the tomb of Rabbi Low/ with the Golem monster/ buried there beneath the
clay/ Was I not present in the Old-New Synagogue/ when they spoke the 'customs of the
Jews'/ how they read the Torah/ with a pointed tool/ not touching parchment with their
hands." Terre's fathers Russian origins are explored in The Potato Man
(undated), a composite work made up of an eastern European photograph and a print of an
eastern European woman. Possessing few visual records and partial narratives about her
Russian family, The Potato Man reflects Terre's desire to invent a visual image of
her ancestry. In the poem that accompanies this work, Terre writes, "My father the
potato man is dead . . . My father the potato man/ will not sit over borscht/ and sour
cream/ and potato/ pieces/ and tell me/ later I will tell you/ of the cow and the farm/
and my mother and Russia/ and the cold. Later I will/ tell you." Terre has been
Associate Director for the Washington Women's Art Center (1981), co-editor of the
retrospective catalogue celebrating the first decade of the women's art movement in
Washington, D.C. (1982 to 1983), and the gateway co-ordinator for the Festival of Arts in
the Hills, Caledon East, Ontario (1996).
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SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1996 |
Festival of the Arts in the
Hills, Caledon East, Ontario
Temple Emanuel-Beth Sholom, Montréal Québec
Northern Virginia Community Center, Fairfax, VirginiaHuntley Meadows Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia
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1995 |
Huntley Meadows Gallery,
Alexandria, Virginia |
1994 |
Mittleman Gallery, Portland,
Oregon |
1993 |
Goldman Art Gallery, Rockville,
Maryland |
1992 |
American Horticultural Society,
Alexandria, Virginia
National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland |
1991 |
Huntley Meadows Gallery,
Alexandria, Virginia |
1989 |
Gallery Jamel, Waldorf,
Maryland |
1988 |
Zygos Gallery, Washington D.C.
The Gallery, York, Pennsylvania |
1987 |
Zygos Gallery, Washington D.C. |
1986 |
Stewart Mott House, Washington
D.C. |
1985 |
Stewart Mott House, Washington
D.C. |
1982 |
Stewart Mott House, Washington
D.C. |
1980 |
Women Artist Series
Douglas College, Newark, New Jersey |
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1996 |
Trails of Caledon
Caledon, Ontario |
1995 |
Whitten Gallery, King City,
Ontario
Renowned Headwaters Artists
Millcroft Inn, Alton, OntarioArielcroft
Gallery, Mansfield, Ontario
Fitzgerald Fine Arts, Alexandria, Virginia
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1994 |
Spectrum Gallery, Georgetown,
Washington D.C. |
1990 |
Art and the Written Word
Target Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia
Twentieth Century Gallery, Williamsburg, Virginia |
1989 |
Zygos Gallery, Washington D.C. |
1988 |
Side Porch Gallery, Washington
D.C. |
1987 |
Virginia Landscape
Exhibition
Virginia House of Delegates, Richmond, Virginia |
1986 |
Studio Gallery, Washington D.C. Gallery 10, Washington D.C.
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1984 |
Athenaeum Annual Exhibition,
Alexandria, Virginia |
1981 |
Gallery 10, Washington D.C. |
COLLECTIONS
Town of Caledon, Caledon, Ontario
Georgetown University Hospital, Lombardi Cancer Research Centre, Washington D.C.
National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
Fairfax County Park Authority, Alexandria, Virginia
National Parks Service, Washington D.C. |
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Terre, Lyndia. "Biblical women:
Redrawing the stories." Vox Feminarium: The Canadian Journal of Feminist
Spirituality 1, no.4 (September 1997): 2-7. ---.
"Trails: Moments in time on the Bruce Trail." DA 40: A Journal of the
Printing Arts no. 40 (Spring 1997): 19-23.
---. Reflections of Kiawah: Words and Drawings.
Caledon East, Ontario: The Erret's Needle, 1998.
---. To Celebrate with Light: Words and Etchings.
Caledon East, Ontario: The Erret's Needle, 1997.
---. A Year in the Wetlands. Caledon East,
Ontario: The Erret's Needle, 1997. |
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