Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.1129.4, Connecticut Historical …

Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Year 3 Presentation - Finnish Weaving

Date1995-2005

MediumPositive Color Film Slides

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

DescriptionSlide photograph of a Finnish double-sided weaving on a loom created during the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Year 3 (2000-2001) Finnish weaving apprenticeship team at the Finnish American Heritage Society (FAHS) in Canterbury, Connecticut. Apprentice Anita Smiley (right) and teacher Seija Floderus (left).

Object number2015.196.1129.4

CopyrightIn Copyright

NotesSubject Note: Several members of the Finnish American Heritage Society in Canterbury CT participated in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program from 2000-2003, learning Nordic weaving styles and generating a great interest in weaving in this community which has continued with new apprenticeships in 2022-2024. Experienced weaver Seija Floderus, who had learned household weaving in Finland from her mother and her aunt, taught some basic Finnish techniques such as poppana, kuultokudos with linen, for traditional rag rugs and table runners, as well as how to warp the different looms in the first year. In the second year, Seija continued with teaching basics such as warping the loom, and also introduced the more advanced technique of ryijy, a difficult style of thick-pile tapestry weaving technique using linen and wool. In the third year, seven apprentices continued working with ryjiy. Apprentice Val Galasyn created a beautiful ryjiy weaving depicting the Finnish flag and the year of the country’s independence, 1917. Several looms including Seija’s husband’s grandmother’s 100-year-old Swedish loom, were donated to FAHS and restored and repaired by men of the Finnish American Heritage Society. The apprentices presented their work and the looms at several open house programs held at FAHS Finn Hall during the three years of their early apprenticeship training. The students produced so many weavings that they sold them to raise income for the Society, in addition to using the linen towels in their family saunas. The weaving classes have involved many in the community through donation and renovation of the looms, production of the woven pieces, and presentation of the project through the Society’s newsletter and special events. This apprenticeship has also been presented in four CCHAP exhibits, in 2010, 2016, 2017, and 2018, and has continued with a weaving group that meets regularly at the Finn Hall as of 2025.

Subject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from RI, MA, or CT with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.

Subject Note: Based at the hundred-year-old Finn Hall in Canterbury, the Finnish American Heritage Society formed in 1987 to prevent the sale of the hall to outsiders, and established its mission to promote Finnish heritage, culture, and language. The group renovated the building, first dedicated in 1925, adding a national monument to Finnish American World War II veterans, a meeting room with full kitchen, and an updated theatre area with dressing rooms. To house a growing archives collection, a purpose-built climate-controlled museum and storage space was designed with a slant roof reflecting the hall’s structure and the roofs of many sheds throughout the landscape. To advance the appreciation of Finnish culture, the society has sponsored an array of educational and arts programs, along with celebrations of Finnish culinary traditions, craft workshops, regional gatherings, and theatrical productions over the years. Since 2020 and continuing, FAHS has developed its collections, archives, and library into a professional museum open to the public. A quarterly FAHS newsletter, The FinnConn Connection, reaches over 400 subscribers. The Finnish community in Connecticut also formed the Aura Seura agricultural society in Voluntown, where the group built Aura Hall as a gathering place for community events in that area.

The Finnish American Heritage Society library, comprising works of fiction, history and rare Marxist titles in Finnish translation, stands as one of the most complete of its kind in the country. This archive also houses one of the largest collections of Finnish music in the US, as well as folk art, costumes, textiles, and memorabilia. The restored backdrops used in theatrical productions over the life of the hall form a significant collection. In 1996 the Brooklyn NY Imatra Lodge, which had been a Finnish workers’ association, social hall, aid society and publisher of the New Yorkin Uutiset edited by Matti Kurikka, closed and transferred its records and books to the Canterbury Finnish Hall, forming the first collections of the archive and library. In 1997 the Imatra Foundation awarded a generous grant to FAHS to fund the new heritage center addition, built by cooperative community labor in typical Finnish talkoot style. FAHS members have conducted oral history interviews with several older community residents, recording their memories on audio and videotape. In 2000 FAHS compiled an illustrated community history as part of the Local Legacies: Celebrating Community Roots project organized by the Library of Congress, available online and as part of the permanent collections of the American Folklife Center.

The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP) at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History has partnered with FAHS since 2000 on apprenticeships that have taught traditional arts of weaving, sauna-building, woodcarving, traditional fiddling, kantele-playing, and birch bark basketry. Through the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, FAHS members shared their learning with Finns from other New England states, re-energizing several traditional practices across the region, building a working sauna at their community hall, developing a weaving cooperative, training folk musicians, and reviving a form of woodcarving that has been nearly lost in Finland. In addition to these activities, CCHAP has advised FAHS on oral history interviewing and archiving and museum practices. CCHAP has also brought new visitors to the Finn Hall in Canterbury through two bus tours that introduced visitors to Finnish heritage sites and culinary experiences. In 2017, FAHS and CCHAP developed and displayed an exhibition of Finnish history in Connecticut at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford. Sisu and Creativity presented art works, images, oral histories, and documentation of the community’s history from the FAHS archives, one of the largest Finnish collections in the country. The exhibit explored central characteristics of Finnish settlement in Connecticut – their agricultural cooperatives; the built environment including farms, barns, and community halls; the saunas constructed by every family as a social gathering place; the festivals celebrating important Finnish holidays; and the many artistic and musical traditions still practiced throughout the community. 2017 marked the centenary of Finland’s independence from Russia, as well as the 30th anniversary of the founding of FAHS, and the project was part of a series of local and national commemorative events.

Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for this community and these activities.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

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