- CA-BC-MC006
- Pessoa
- fl. 1970s-
Cheryl Massey is a weaver, artist, actress, model, and long-time Whistler resident. She was born on Vancouver Island and grew up in West Vancouver. Cheryl’s love of skiing in Whistler began in her teens. She attended Hillside Secondary School in West Vancouver, then going on to study at Capilano College. After years of working as an actress and model, living in Europe and Japan, she moved to Whistler to ski for a season. Cheryl met her husband-to-be, Vincent "Binty" Massey at Christmas in 1980 at the Roundhouse cafeteria on Whistler Mountain. She then moved to Tokyo, Japan and he to England to attend West Surrey College of Art in Farnham, England, parting ways until 1982 upon their return to Vancouver. Vincent was setting up his first pottery studio in his parents' ocean-front property in Vancouver when they reconnected and eventually married on February 17, 1985. The couple moved to Whistler in 1985, Cheryl already pregnant, and built a house in Alpine Meadows; there, they raised their two children: Tyler and Michela. Cheryl began basket-weaving in 1989 after taking a course in Indigenous basket-weaving while on a trip to the Northern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Vincent and Cheryl also ran Vincent Massey Pottery Gallery and Cheryl's basket-weaving business out of their home, which doubled as a studio/workshop/gallery. Cheryl weaves hats, bags, baskets, and wall-hangings out of natural materials she gathers herself, including kelp, tule rush, and cedar, and her art is influenced by First Nations weaving traditions. Cheryl’s baskets can be found in the Four Seasons Hotel, First Tracks Lodge, and the Rim Rock Cafe in Whistler. For the first five years working in Whistler, the couple's profits from art, pottery, and weaving was not yet enough to pay the bills, so Vincent also worked in home construction and for the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW). By the 1990s, the couple were able to make a living for their family off of their art. In the 2000s, Cheryl was a member of the Whistler Singers choir in Whistler, and she was also involved in the Whistler theatre scene, acting in productions and working in tandem with Michele Bush and Angie Nolan. In 2022, Vincent and Cheryl moved with their border collie dog, Lucie, to Nelson Island on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, where they rebuilt their studio/workshop/gallery.