Finland has a rich tradition of crafts that reflect the country’s deep connection to nature and its commitment to functional yet beautiful design. Finnish crafts have a distinctive aesthetic, blending simplicity, elegance, and a reverence for natural materials. Artist, Hannaleena Ahonen hails from Finland and has brought with her a unique artistic style that defines her work. For the ROOTS exhibition, Hannaleena produced four pieces, each showing her imagination and embroidery skills at their best.

Hannaleena’s family are all makers. Her father made candles and designed and built his own machinery for that purpose. Her mother was multi-talented: boatbuilding, sheering sheep and making her own yarn. She also made pottery and had her own kiln, wove rugs and tapestry on a floor loom, and had a flair for painting and drawing. Being steeped in such creativity, it is not surprising that their children are also makers. Hannaleena’s sisters knit, make household furnishings, weave rattan chairs, do punch needling and weave bags. Some also excel in fine art and one is a sculptor.

Therefore, one might presume that Hannaleena’s route to fine art was an easy one. But, as is frequently the case, her school experience managed to knock her confidence when she struggled with drawing and painting and, as a result, she did not consider herself as a creative. Whilst she continued with making practical things, it wasn’t until she joined element15 that she allowed herself to move out of her comfort zone and to start creating some of the things she held in her imagination, that had a story to tell. This has been a life changing challenge for her, in a good way!


The image that Jane Clarke draws with her words in the poem ‘Map’ resonated with Hannaleena and prompted her to respond. There was comfort in using materials familiar to her … that lovely brown tissue that is dressmaking pattern paper, buttons collected over the years and an array of yarns from ‘the stash’.
She pinned a Simplicity pattern
on sky blue denim,
fed the fabric
through the machine .....
A paper pattern's like a map,
she said, arrow heads give direction,
Dots mark collars and pockets,
where to tuck or pleat,
notches show fittings
for waist, hips and breasts ...
That was when we believed
if I followed the map
I could be
whoever I wanted to be.
Map, Jane Clarke
Having teenage children Hannaleena can identify with the idea of trying to prepare them for adulthood. The plaster cast she made for the ‘Bodice’ piece was moulded out of her daughter’s torso and gives deep meaning to it. We might plan a life for our children, but they face many obstacles and challenges and may not want the secure, safe path which we imagine for them. All parents hope that their children’s struggles and path in life will reveal a much more fulfilling future than expected. The colours Hannaleena has used in the crochet covered buttons that adorn this piece, move from white to full colour, to a rainbow of possibilities in fact.

Similar themes are explored in the poem ‘Against The Flow’ which compares the struggle to find one’s own path through life to that of the salmon negotiating boulders and obstructions as it swims upstream to spawn. In response to this poem, Hannaleena screen printed a water design onto cotton and then slowly joined the small squares of fabric together to form a quilt which she named ‘Flow’. Pebbles, or the obstacles to be negotiated, were created using crochet in earthy, silted colours and the piece is displayed in a pedestal, its undulating folds reflecting the water flow.


Hannaleena’s final piece, ‘Clematis’ is in response the poem ‘September 1914’ about the first world war. The poem speaks of a soldier’s work harvesting and planting in his garden “the week before he left for France”. To create a garden, to plant seeds and bulbs to flower next year is a statement of hope, a belief in a future one may not have. Hannaleena too gardens in hope of a future and takes pleasure in the return of the clematis each year trailing across her little terrace. This small, beautifully stitched piece is shown in an antique frame that is befitting of the subject matter.


Thank you to Hannaleena for sharing the background to her work. Thanks to Jane Clarke for her collaboration and to her publisher, Bloodaxe Books, for permission to use her poems. Thanks also to the OPW for the opportunity to exhibit and Kildare County Council for funding through the Arts Act Grant.
This is the final week to see these works in the exhibition ROOTS, a dialogue in textile and poetry, in the Coach House Gallery, Dublin Castle. Open 7 days a week, 10 am – 5 pm, closed for lunch 1.15 – 1.45 p.m. Jane’s books are now available in the gift shop in Chester Beatty Library next to the Coach House Gallery.