September 07, 2026
Provided Image/Emily Briggs for CraftNation
CraftNation, a new community space in Port Richmond (above) offers art supplies and classes to local creatives.
As a young creative living in San Francisco in the early 2000s, Gabrielle Gallo loved to take part in weekly craft nights with her friends. They'd sit in the garage, drink wine and do art projects. It eventually expanded into a collective called CraftNation, and the group would host events with live music and sell their work.
She stopped crafting with friends when she moved to Brooklyn, but after moving to Philly in 2022, she got back into the hobby. As soon as she met someone and "liked them even a little bit," she'd invite them over to her Port Richmond home for drawing, beading and more on Sunday afternoons. It brought her back to that community feeling, but she limited it to a side hobby until her mom died.
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"It was a little bit of a wake-up call that life is a little bit short," said Gallo, who is 50. "If I only had 20 years left in this planet, (I thought) 'What do I want to spend those 20 years doing?' And it sure as hell wasn't working at Dropbox. I wanted to open a place where folks could come and make stuff with their hands and find their sense of community."
That idea turned into CraftNation, a crafting studio that Gallo opened in June at 2923-25 E. Thompson St. in Port Richmond. Named after her original collective, the space hosts workshops and classes for more ornate crafts such as chainmail weaving, lamp assembly, watercolor painting, mosaics and candle making. There's also open studio hours for more approachable crafts like collaging, polymer clay and beading.
"I have such a broad range of crafts," Gallo said. "It's really fun to see people come in, they'll look at what I have available, and then they'll make something that I hadn't even considered." One person, she said, recently made mini animal busts out of clay to mount on a small scrap of wood like a hunting trophy.
Gallo also tries to reuse materials as much as possible, recycling scraps from other projects and also finding art supplies at thrift stores.
Most of the classes are one-off workshops at the moment, although Gallo also is creating a small classroom so teachers can hold multiple sessions. Gallo hosts a paper arts day on the second Sunday of every month, first aid workshops and monthly protest art collaging sessions that benefit either Asian Americans United or the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia. She also plans to host at least two free events per month. The space can be booked for private events, including birthday parties, as well.
Mostly, though, Gallo said she wants CraftNation to bring together the neighborhood and creatives from throughout the city.
"Crafting is obviously important to me, but the most important piece is the community that we want to offer through CraftNation and the ability for people to have a place to come where they feel safe, where they know that they're going to be treated with kindness," Gallo said. "It doesn't matter what they make or how they make it. It's just a place that they can comfortably exist and find their folks."
