TRIP: Finland, 1985

In 1985 I traveled to Finland, flying FinnAir from Los Angeles, to visit the Friends of Finnish Handicraft. The School of Fine Arts at The University of Montana had commissioned the FFH to weave a tapestry in the form of a traditional Finnish rya and as the only weaver in the school, I got to go to Helsinki to see the work in progress and meet with the woman charged with weaving what would turn out to be the largest rya in the world, 20 feet x 30 feet. It now hangs in the lobby of the Performing Arts-Radio-Television building on the UM campus in Missoula. While in Finland, I traveled to Turku, Hamelinna, Rovaniemi and Oulu, meeting with as many fiber artists as I could.