PURPLE HAZE - AN INCREDIBLE PIECE OF TRADITIONAL HANDICRAFT Design Klaus Haapaniemi Manufacturer Suomen Käsityön Ystävät Oy / The Friends of Finnish Handicraft 2012 Weavers Art Weavers Kariina Linna & Sanna Reinikainen Size: 8 square meters Materials: 100% worsted yarn Made of 93 288 hand tufted piles Consist of 37 different colors and 17 blended yarn piles Took 9 weeks for 2 art weavers to make the rya The Friends of Finnish Handicraft is one of the leading Scandinavian promoters of textile art. This bastion of Finnish applied arts was established in 1879 and continues to actively not only cherish the tradition of textile crafts, but also to revitalise, together with artists, architects and designers, the modern textile art displayed in public spaces. The design of the rya is based on a large scale print first shown in 2006 in a Klaus Haapaniemi's first solo exhibition in Seoul, Korea. It shows a herd of horses galloping out of birch trees in a darkening forest. It is a hypnotic and surreal vision and the details of the decorative patterns remind the viewer of traditional Finnish handcrafts, sometimes used to describe aurora borealis in Sami art. The horses is a typical subject in traditional ryas. The Purple Haze is a modern interpretation of age old subject, it's luscious colours and graphically rich geometric patterns combined with earthy and tactile wool yarns bring the rya tradition into a new level.