Kaija Sanelma Harris

Kaija Sanelma Harris (née Lehtimäki) (December20, 1939 August27, 2022) was a Finnish-born Canadian weaver who was significant to the craft and art community of Canada. She was known for her exceptional use of colour, structure, innovative techniques, and impact on Canadian weaving. She loved the landscape of the place she lived - Saskatoon - and wanted to put in weaving her transient sensory experience of the Prairies, saying "If I could design the landscape…" (into my art, I would be happy). Kaija Sanelma Harris pushed the limits of textile art, wrote the Remai Modern Museum about her art in 2024. Both her Finnish biological mother and her Swedish foster mother were accomplished textile workers. Her Swedish foster mother knit and embroidered clothes for her, and her Finnish mother was a seamstress who worked out of their home, making gowns to a customer's specifications.

Following high school, Harris studied weaving at Abo Hemslojdslararinne Institut (Turku Textile Teachers Institute) from 1960 to 1964. She described this experience in an artist statement she wrote in 1988. The school was very traditional. Students learned to spin, dye, and weave, and received a thorough understanding of weave structures. Students also learned sewing, drafting patterns, embroidery, and studied many lesser-known textile techniques. Good craftsmanship and design was emphasized. Harris writes that "Although my first weave was somewhat discouraging, I think I learned more from it than from any later one. I learned the function and meaning of the various parts of the loom, the relationship between a draft and a weave, and above all how to repair broken warp threads and as you all know, the knowledge one gains the hard way is not easily forgotten."

Career After completing her education, Harris moved to Reykjavík, Iceland, and worked as an assistant to Sigrun Jonsdottir, an Icelandic textile designer specializing in batik and ecclesiastical art.

While in Iceland, she met American Fulbright student Richard Harris and married. Harris' first introduction to North America was in the state of Iowa, in Cedar Rapids. There she attended an exhibition of weaving organized by the Museum of Modern Art: this exhibition was an experience she referred to often as an influence on her art practice. She marveled at the freedom and the 'lack of inhibition' demonstrated by these new contemporary weavers, which included artists from North America, Poland, and Germany. She received her first of five Dimensions Premier's Prizes in 1978.

Harris attended the Fibre Interchange workshops at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta in 1980, under the tutelage of renowned textile artist Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. She stated that this impactful workshop helped her further relax the regimented methods of her traditional education while also making her designs more disciplined and ambitious.

In 1983 Harris was commissioned by Cadillac Fairview alongside several other prominent Canadian artists to create art for the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto. This commission produced Sun Ascending (1984), the largest of the commissioned pieces displayed at the TD Centre. Sun Ascending is constructed of 24 panels that took Harris and an assistant nine months of full-time work to complete. Myrna Gent describes in a Craft Factor article that Harris worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week for that period of time, while her assistant worked eight-hour days, five days a week.

Use of colour Harris was known for her sense of colour. She found inspiration from the landscape around her, on both a large and small scale. In an interview with Sheila Roberson for The Craft Factor, she reflected on when she first moved to Saskatchewan: "I fell in love with the province early, driving from the south to the north. I loved the light on the prairie". She described that her colour use and choice is intuitive, and that she had no inhibitions toward colour. She can put any colour anywhere, and it tends to work. This lack of inhibition is demonstrated in the way she blends and combines yarns, creating a depth of colour.

An interview "From Inner Eye to Public View: Designing with Kaija Sanelma Harris," by Dorothy Boran, discusses this use of blending threads and the different kinds of yarns Harris used. Boran also discusses how the technical knowledge of Harris' material lets her explore and innovate different methods to blend colours to create the effects she desired. Harris' first experiments resulted in a series of tapestries called Transition, which uses her own version of the Moorman weave to achieve a pictorial image. She later refined this method which she called 'double weave' and 'inlaid tapestry weave.' These methods have two warps, which allowed her to separate and reconnect the yarn systems resulting in three-dimensional works. These raised areas in the tapestry catch light and cast shadows, helping create the atmosphere or mood she wants for the piece. Examples of her double and inlaid techniques resulting in three-dimensional works can be seen in her pieces such as Stubble Field (1984), On the Way to Shangri-La (1990) and A Place for Contemplation (1998). Robertson writes that the artist was interested in the idea of excavating her own fabrics. She cut into the layers of finished tapestries to reveal the underlying structures, or experimented with the shrinkage of different wool varieties. She further experimented with unconventional materials, weaving pockets with photo filters that allowed light to pass through, creating slippery glimmers under the delicate surface. These photo filter strategies can be seen in her "Woven Quilt Series." This altering of the weaving after the loom also extended to felting and embroidery. Robertson wrote that the artist's work On the Wane (1999) shows the consideration that she put into her works through the small details of embroidery which finish the tapestry. Warp & Weft, A Kaija Sanelma Harris Retrospective, 2024-2025. A joint exhibition between the Saskatchewan Craft Council and the Remai Modern. Solo Show;

Awards and honours Harris has been the recipient of many awards and grants, including five Dimensions Premier's Prizes and seven Dimensions Merit awards. She was in the top five finalists for the Saidye Bronfman Award in 2001. She received a Canada Council Craft Grant in 1996, a Saskatchewan Arts Board Creative "A" Grant in 1987, and the Saskatchewan Arts Board Travel Grant in 1984.