Out Here (we is) (2025), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches. All images courtesy of Melissa Caldern, shared with permissionMelissa Caldern Preserves Neighborhood Memories in Bold Textured ThreadMarch 13, 2025ArtCraftGrace EbertOn expanses of beige linen, Melissa Caldern immortalizes pockets of a neighborhood or domestic space. Combining imagery from her childhood in the Bronx with her familys native Puerto Rico, the artist translates familiar landscapes and sights into vivid embroideries, preserving her memories in thread. The intimate compositions capture how neighborhoods and communities change, particularly as long-time residents are displaced. Her current body of work, titled Gentrified Landscapes, explores a place that once was but is now between the two spurts of gentrified-led divestment and revitalization and how this particularly affects the Bronx and Puerto Rico.Villa Nueva (Id Still be Puerto Rican even if born on the Moon) (2024), cotton, nylon, and chenille hand embroidered on linen, 24 x 24 inchesCaldern embraces the potential of thread to add texture and emphasize the more conceptual elements of her work. Villa Nueva (Id Still be Puerto Rican even if born on the Moon), for example, drapes soft, green chenille across the composition like a lush cluster of vines. Prone IV | My Underemployed Life series features a green sofa unraveling into tangled fibers that spill off the canvas.In her studio, Caldern focuses on the meditative, entrancing process of stitching. Works begin with a drawing thats transferred to a pattern and freehand rendered onto the linen. She enjoys the slow, methodical movements, which remind her of times I sewed with my grandmother, making Cabbage Patch Kids clothes to sell on the playground before school started for the day. Embroidery takes me to a calm place where only the process matters.Currently, Caldern is working on a few commissions and preparing for a solo exhibition in Puerto Rico. She also recently began a large-scale work titled Bodega Miles that will stretch 40 inches wide and take more than a year to complete. You can follow her progress on Instagram.Prone IV | My Underemployed Life series (2023), cotton and satin thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inchesA work in progressComing Soon (2023), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inchesEl Tiempo Muerto (The Dead Times) (2023), cotton, and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 24 x 24 inchesDetail of Coming Soon (2023), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inchesNext article