'this is kaija in all her complexity': exhibits honour groundbreaking sask. textile artist
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kaija sanelma harris created her world in textile, painting prairie landscapes and memories of her native finland in lines of interlaced thread back and forth across the loom.
“she was a world-class weaver — internationally-known — and the best weaver i’ve ever known,” says saskatchewan-based textile artist jude haraldson. “her colour sense was astounding, her design sense was amazing and her technical skill was astounding.”
because she was both an expert crafter and a trailblazing artist of her era, harris’s work often lived in a quiet space between these two creative ‘worlds.’
after her death in 2022 at the age of 82, curators at the saskatchewan craft council and the remai modern gallery in saskatoon have collaborated on their first joint exhibition to showcase her work. it was time, they agreed, for one of saskatchewan’s most inventive and boundary-breaking artists to get her due.
“kaija was incredibly prolific, but she made her contributions quietly, on the sidelines, because she was a craft artist and a textile artist,” said saskatchewan craft council exhibition coordinator leah moxley teigrob.
“she wasn’t necessarily recognized in the same way as some of the painters of that time. so it’s important to bring her work into context, and to talk about her legacy in the craft and art communities in saskatoon.”
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to help people understand what made harris’s work so unique and how her influence continues to shape textile art in canada today, haraldson has been demonstrating some of harris’s techniques to gallery visitors.
“i started by demonstrating basic weaving, because a lot of people don’t know where their clothes come from — so understanding the simple, basic weaving is key,” she said.
“basically, weaving is threads going over and under each other. one set is the warp threads — they’re usually held in place, in order, and it can be on something as simple as a frame that you wrap it around — and the other set is the weft threads.”
professional weaver jude haraldson gives a live weaving demonstration in the gallery at the saskatchewan craft council at 813 broadway ave. in saskatoon, sask. on saturday, jan. 18, 2025.
michelle berg
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saskatoon starphoenix
from those two basic principles, harris built her designs with colours and textures and patterns, adding three-dimensional designs like clusters of birch trees framing the cloth landscape or woven ‘pockets’ that she could then use to create stained-glass-like effects with colour gels or to join other pieces of woven or felted cloth into geometric tapestries.
she would sketch her designs in pencil, so she could see how the colours would overlap without bleeding into one another — “in weaving, colours don’t blend like paint; they pixelate. weaving always shows the other yarn,” haraldson explained — and worked one line at a time, tying handfuls of different wool onto her loom to make the cut-diamond skylines and organic textures that would become an iconic part of her style.
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“visiting her in her house, her studio was very simple,” haraldson recalled. “she had a lot of yarn and two big looms, which were back-to-back with each other.
“seeing her drawings and her looms, you can understand how she did these amazing pieces, where it looks like one complex colour when you step back and when you come close you can see all the structure in it.
“she concentrated a lot on her work — she was meticulous, very planned and precise — and it was what she loved doing.”
at first, when remai modern and the craft council were planning their joint exhibition, they had thought each gallery would feature a different side of harris’s work: the craft council could highlight her technique, while the remai would showcase her place in saskatchewan’s art history.
but michelle jacques, remai modern’s chief curator, says that kind of clear binary simply didn’t exist in harris’s pieces.
“it was impossible to do that, because that was just not the way she operated,” said jaques.
“for people to really engage with her work, we need to talk about technique — she was such a stickler for technique, having been trained in sweden in these very traditional and precise approaches to weaving. but when she came to saskatchewan, her first community here was the painting community, and she talks about the inspiration for her work in very much the same way that the painters of that time talk about being inspired.”
installation view, kaija sanelma harris, warp & weft, 2024-25, remai modern, saskatoon. photo: carey shaw.
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and fully recognizing the ways harris redefined the rules of her craft shouldn’t mean putting an asterisk on her place in art history, moxley teigrob adds.
“we wanted to connect some of her functional work — like the blankets we have on display — with pieces like these incredible tapestries that took months and months of planning and work to put together,” she said. “these are both valid pieces of artwork, made by the same artist.
“a conversation that’s always happening around the craft council is about how we can make connections and bring attention to craft pieces at the same level of other types of fine art: because they are often disregarded, or seen as only functional, or seen as ‘women’s work.’
“kaija did not receive as much recognition as she should have, based on the quality of her work. part of this whole exhibition is about bringing that to light and reminding people that she was here.”
harris was a master of her field, but she was and is not the only person working at the intersection of art and craft, so bringing these creatives into the spotlight is an opportunity to tell a story of saskatchewan art history that is vastly broader, deeper and more expansive than what has previously been featured on the gallery walls, jacques says.
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“kaija was under-recognized; and so, to an extent, this show is a discovery. but really, at one point, she was operating amongst the greatest textile artists working — and i think there probably are many other stories like hers.
“artists who stay in saskatchewan choose a different kind of life — it’s a different kind of benefit — rather than going somewhere else where they might have more opportunities and more accolades.
“definitely think there are more stories like this to be found and to be told. it’s a reminder, to myself and to other people working in this field, that we need to do what we can to bring attention to the wealth of creativity and talent that exists here.”
installation view, kaija sanelma harris, warp & weft, 2024-25, remai modern, saskatoon. photo: carey shaw.
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