Ritva Puotila | ScandinavianDesign.com

Ritva Puotila is a Finnish textile artist and colourist, born in Vyborg in 1935, and the creative force behind Woodnotes. She was the first to bring paper yarn into contemporary interiors as a material in its own right, and her carpets have become a quiet signature of Finnish design.

Background

Puotila studied decorative painting and stage design at the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki and set up her own studio in 1960. The same year, aged 25, she won a gold medal at the Milan Triennale for a rya rug. A long career as a freelance designer followed, including decades of work for the American company Dansk Designs and for rug makers in Finland and Sweden. In 1987 she founded Woodnotes together with her son Mikko Puotila, built on the paper yarn she had been exploring in her own art.

Design approach

Puotila is above all a colourist. She uses paper yarn for its own qualities rather than as a substitute for other fibres: it is spun from northern softwood, does not gather or shed dust and feels neither cold nor warm. Her designs combine strict, often symmetrical patterns with the handmade surface of the weave, drawing on both Japanese and traditional Finnish craft.

Key designs

Her carpets for Woodnotes include Big Stripe and Fourways, with bold bands of colour, and Squareplay, a row of squares that can be combined into larger fields. Later work includes the Timeless Green collection with its new aspen green, and the Line carpet, reissued in water-inspired colours. Her Woodpecker paper yarn fabric covers the Detalji bench by Jenni Roininen for Nikari, nominated for Furniture of the Year at the Scandinavian Design Awards 2023.

Recognition

Puotila has received the Kaj Franck Design Award and the Pro Finlandia Medal, and her work is held by MoMA in New York and the National Museum in Oslo, among other collections.

By Editorial Team, ScandinavianDesign.com