we visited Saija Lehtonen at her atelöier, in the nearby of Tampere. She mostly is focused in art crafts from natural materials like bone, horn, leather and wood. Her ideological background is try to use materials that also have the further than monetary value, showing respect for life and nature. Saija is natural from Karstula in Central Finland and graduated from the Kuopio Academy of Design tekstiilimuotoilijaksi. She also has been hosted by Artranta residence program

In her Showroom we could see some of her volume artwork, and her designed products. We enjoyed very much the reflectant gear based traditional braid to make buoys of fishing nets and her jewelry made of fish skin and reindeer hooves

She also show me some articles and traditional ways for carding, spinning and make skeins of wool

She also showed me the Pirtanauha, a traditional finnish waist loom, some sketch about how to made the traditional bands..., and how she uses it

Visit to Saija Lehtonen's Atleier, in Nokia

She has colected traditional ways to tan fish skins in the central finland area surrounded by lakes. She compiled the info and currently makes bags and leather accesories with this technique and gives workshops about that

Visit to Saija Lehtonen's Atleier, in Nokia

She showed me some natural materials with which he is experimenting

Nettle,

birch and linden bark

horse hair

deer hair