We always love seeing how contemporary artists push the boundaries of traditional craft here at Create! Magazine, and that is exactly what you will find in Tending to Clouds, a fiber arts exhibition opening at Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Philadelphia.

Curated by Jessica Aguilar, the show brings together three distinct voices in contemporary textile art: Catalina Escallón Rosselli, Richie Wilde López, and Margaux McAllister. Together, they transform materials as simple as thread, wool, and banana leaves into dreamscape compositions, grand ensembles, and embellished tapestries that stretch the definition of what fiber art can hold.

At the heart of the exhibition is a shared meditation on personal ritual and the beauty found in everyday repetition. Whether tending a garden, sustaining a home, or the slow, purposeful act of art-making itself, each artist follows their process without knowing the final result, guided instead by a steady belief in its possibilities. In a fast-paced world, that kind of patience feels almost radical. These three artists find meditation and convalescence through their fiberwork, a quiet reminder of the impact of slow, meaningful craft in our contemporary landscape.

Fiber is also an inherently relational medium. We all carry reference points for textiles from our own homes: blankets, kitchen towels, upholstery, all the softer places set against the hard doors and walls around them. Tending to Clouds leans into that familiarity, then asks us to look again.

Catalina Escallón Rosselli

Catalina Escallón Rosselli is a Colombian artist based in Brooklyn, New York, whose background in graphic design and textiles shapes her embroidered works on paper. Through intricate hand stitching, sequins, and beads, she transforms flat surfaces into tactile compositions that blur the line between the graphic, the textile, and the dimensional.

Her pieces invite viewers to step closer, to trace the rhythm of each stitch, and to appreciate the deliberate pace behind the technique. The sequins and plastic beads she incorporates do more than catch the eye; they interact with light itself, shifting in color and intensity depending on the angle and giving her abstract colorscapes a dynamic, almost floating luminosity.

Richie Wilde López

Richie Wilde López is a self-taught, queer Puerto Rican textile artist based right here in Philadelphia. Rather than traditional academic training, his practice has grown out of sustained studio experimentation, personal research, and material inquiry.

Working primarily through weaving and embroidery, López investigates how textiles hold memory, lived experience, and the passage of time. The home, domestic labor, and the women who shaped his life remain recurring touchstones, woven into both his material choices and his process. Increasingly, his work is moving beyond memory alone and toward presence, exploring how the act of making can become a form of sustained attention that lets emotion and bodily experience exist without needing immediate resolution. Alongside his studio practice, López also develops and facilitates textile based workshops and community programs centered on accessible making.

Margaux McAllister

Margaux McAllister is a multidisciplinary artist working out of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, with an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BFA from Moore College of Art and Design. Working across rug tufting, embroidery, beading, installation, oil painting, and drawing, she creates ceremonial masks adorned with spiritual symbols and ethereal beings that preside over fantastical plant forms.

Her work questions our understanding of identity, transcendence, and the emotional spaces we inhabit, probing at the self and its relationship to the broader, universal human experience. McAllister's work has been featured in the Art Delivery email from The Jealous Curator, on the cover of PXV ART MAG, and in multiple Arts To Hearts Project books, and she has exhibited throughout the Philadelphia area and beyond, including at Philadelphia's Magic Garden.

Plan Your Visit

Tending to Clouds will be on view on the first floor of Paradigm Gallery + Studio from September 4 through September 27, 2026. If you are local to the Philadelphia area, be sure to stop by the public opening reception on Friday, September 4, during Old City's First Fridays.

Since 2010, Paradigm Gallery + Studio has been championing meaningful, process-intensive contemporary art from emerging and mid-career artists around the world, with a special focus on Philadelphia. Its home, The Paradigm Arts Building in Old City, spans five stories and 7,000 square feet, housing exhibition space, in-house design and printmaking, an events floor, and art advisory offices all under one roof.

Tending to Clouds is a wonderful reminder that even in our busiest moments, there is meaning to be found in the slow, deliberate acts we return to again and again. We cannot wait to see it in person.