If you don’t know the living light that is Terri Ritter, consider this article a brief introduction to talent, love, and passion personified. 

Whether it’s leading the Cookeville Art Studio & Gallery, creating acrylic masterpieces, or smiling at her husband of 39 years like it’s their first date, Terri carries herself with a zeal for being alive that is contagious and inspiring. 

“I grew up in Sarasota, Florida where The Ringling Brothers and The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art were located. Art was big down there from kindergarten up and your elementary and middle school education included art classes. I studied through high school but took a job as a flight attendant after graduating and quit doing art for 30 years.” Ritter continued, “I had to take an early retirement due to an injury and my husband (Skip) got me a gift certificate for art supplies. I went and bought materials and began doing landscapes. I started teaching myself alcohol inks and had been doing that for several years when I found acrylic pours. Acrylic pouring is now my primary medium. It is incredibly hard. I’ve been pouring for 6-7 years and I’m just now feeling like I’m getting comfortable with it. Acrylic pouring is a combination of art and science. I just keep learning and educating myself.”

Under Terri’s leadership as president, the Cookeville Art Studio & Gallery has grown to 80 artist members and offers 30 classes each month alongside 12 yearly gallery exhibitions. For Terri, this is just a teaser of what this resource could be for Cookeville’s creative scene.

“Part of my role is networking in the community. When I started here in 2019 as secretary, I realized that 99 percent of the people I talked to didn’t know we existed. We’ve been here since the 60’s. The building we’re in was built in 1973 for this very purpose. People think we’re part of the Cookeville Senior Activity Center or the Appalachian Center for Craft, but that’s not the case. We just share a building with the senior center. My goal is multifaceted. I want to network and let people know we exist, share our mission, and bring art to the community while helping the center grow. I don’t want this growth to be just in membership but in people coming and enjoying the arts. We have the largest gallery between Knoxville, Nashville, and Chattanooga and we need to take advantage of that.” Ritter continued, “When I first got started, I wanted to make us known and get us out of the last century and into this one. It was said that this had become a social club instead of a community-based art program and I wanted to change that immediately. With the help of the board, we’ve refocused on getting stable and impacting our community positively as we look toward the future. We were close to closing after COVID, but we came back, tightened our belts, and now we’re doing well. We’re on the precipice and it’s time to jump and fly or just stand there. I’m ready for us to jump and fly.” 

On engaging with the art center and what lies ahead Terri added, “I have a passion for maximizing how the arts impact our community and there are so many artists here locally that this community doesn’t know about. One way to reach out and connect them to the community is through this art center. All you have to do is call or come in to get involved. We are membership-based and have member shows. Our members get to show work all over the community; we’re in banks, the courthouse, and many other locations in the area. We have some big plans for 2025, things that we’ve never done before. We’re bringing guest artists in from around the country for 2-3 day workshops. We’re doing children’s camps for two weeks, one in June and one in July. We’re doing our “Painting With the Stars” again. Following that, we’ve reserved the barn at Hyder Burks for a family-friendly art fair. We’re going to have booths for kids to do art and adults to come and explore and get an introduction to different techniques. So many people say you can’t do art, but yes you can, you just have to do it.” 

Any conversation with Terri includes three areas of focus: the arts, her faith, and the relationship she and Skip (a talented artist in his own right whose primary medium is woodturning – see our featured artists in this edition for a sneak peek at his work) have built over the last four decades. 

“We met in Chicago and I knew he was my soulmate and I needed to marry him. We made a commitment that there was one word that didn’t exist anymore, ‘divorce.’” Terri beamed, “One year after getting married, he went into full-time ministry and we both got involved in prison ministry. I was a prison and jail chaplain. I went on staff at Sarasota County jail as a chaplain for 80-100 inmates per week. We went on death row and did prison women’s retreats. We were in the worst of the worst lockdown areas where you were told not to go near the bars of the cells. 365 days a year we were on call in challenging environments. We did all this together. In 2007 we decided it was time to retire and moved to Cookeville.”

Though “retired,” Terri not only runs the the Cookeville Art Studio & Gallery but also serves as a board member for Tennessee Craft (a network of craft artists and craft art communities) and works alongside Skip in 24-hour rotations as a chaplain for the Cookeville Police Department. She is a dynamo, an untameable force bent on making the world a better place through kindness and creativity. 

Terri concluded our interview by saying, “My greatest passion is seeing people enjoy art and learn that they can do it also. I teach workshops in pour painting each month and those are fun because people leave saying ‘Wow, I painted that. I can hang that on my wall.’ Art is not a scary thing. Come and play.”

Writing this feature was a treat for me as Terri Ritter is one of the most beautiful souls I’ve ever met. Thanks for all you do to make life in Cookeville more beautiful, friend. 

Written by Andrew Buckner, photos by Abby Weeden, makeup by Jamhile Eckert