ELINOR WHIDDEN is a Settler of British, Irish, Scottish and Huguenot descent. (That’s a Protestant French person persecuted for not being Catholic. Most converted or fled as refugees, like her ancestor Jean Geunon who ended up in Flushing, Long Island in 1657.) Whidden is likely descended from even more European places: research pending. She has always considered herself a Heinz 57 of European flavours, but most closely identifies with the British flavour because of her Grammie, Monty Python, and the family tradition of stifling emotions with dry humour. Whidden currently works, lives and plays hockey in Toronto, part of the Dish With One Spoon Territory. Toronto is the traditional territory of the Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Anishinaabe peoples. The Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation are the current treaty land holders through the Toronto Purchase settlement in 2010.

Elinor received a BA in Canadian/Environmental Studies from Trent University, a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a MFA from SUNY at Buffalo. In 2007 she attended the Walking and Art residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts where she discovered her persona Mountain Man. Whidden is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Chalmers Art Fellowship from the Ontario Arts Council in 2018 and a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to make Land Acknowledgment shoes for herself in Toronto. Her work has been included in various biennials including the 2010 exhibition of Beyond/In Western New York and Show11 in Cambridge Ontario. Her work also recently toured France in a large group exhibition titled Mobile/Immobile.