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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)

expanded images click on thumbnails at left to view larger images

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 Terre’s 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 reader’s 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 father’s 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).

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1996 Festival of the Arts in the Hills, Caledon East, Ontario

Temple Emanuel-Beth Sholom, Montréal Québec

Northern Virginia Community Center, Fairfax, Virginia

Huntley Meadows Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia

 

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, Ontario

Arielcroft Gallery, Mansfield, Ontario

Fitzgerald Fine Arts, Alexandria, Virginia

 

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.

 

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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