Biography

Terri Whetstone was born and educated in Edmonton, Alberta. Joining the "rucksack revolution" she travelled to Mexico and Europe in her late teenage years. Upon her return to Canada, Terri studied photography and Art History at college before switching to Fine Arts (Visual Arts) at the University of Alberta. There she studied painting with noted Canadian painters Douglas Haynes, Robert Scott and Robert Sinclair. Graduating with every intention of being a "painter's painter". However, it is her deep reading of and commitment to Feminism that has most consistently framed her inter-disciplinary art practice.

After graduation, and while still living in Edmonton, Terri was involved with Latitude 53 (a long established artist-run centre) serving on several committees and helping to found the Women's Programme. From there and after a brief stint in Halifax where she had a painting studio at the Port, she moved to Toronto. Living in Toronto for six years, Terri was an active member of the Women's Art Resource Centre (WARC) as a board member and contributing artist to the Matriart magazine. Terri had a part-time studio practice funded by her employment in a community-based Adult Literacy program. Her employment in Adult Literacy facilitated an education in community development that focused and strengthened her activism and directed her employment history going forward.

Moving with her family to rural Nova Scotia in 1993 , Terri contributed to both the rural women's community through her work with Second Story Women Centre and Women's Centres CONNECT!, and later to the arts community in Halifax through her work with the 4Cs Foundation (where she started the Art Bikers program, organized the community arts symposium and training and hosted the Community Arts Circle until her retirement in 2016) ; and as a volunteer on juries and advisory committees. Additionally, Terri served on the Inter-Media Advisory Committee for the Canada Council for the Arts for three years. Terri was also a mentor to emerging women leaders through the International Centre for Women’s Leadership at the Coady Institute in Antigonish, NS during this time. Most recently, she was an active committee member in the development of the Arts and Culture Strategic Plan for the Chester Municipality (where she resides).

After taking a rug hooking workshop at the Rug Hooking Museum of North America in Hubbards, NS a few years ago, Terri began making her most overtly feminist art since the 1980s, creating the textile series "Public Image" and "By Any Other Name". These series, although thematically similar to ideas she had worked with in other media, are her first to cross over into a traditionally feminized craft form. Benefitting from Feminist art history, the works are made and presented within that diverse artistic tradition where a wider range of materials, processes, and socio-political perspectives are recognized as valuable artistic expressions.

Terri states: "Employing rug hooking also connects me to my adopted rural home community where the tradition of making hooked rugs is still proudly practised by local women who learned the craft from their mothers and grandmothers. My "hooked" artworks about empowerment, voice, attitude, behavior. They are, in themselves, small acts of rebellion and resistance.

Terri has an active studio practice and exhibition history with multiple solo and group exhibitions.