By Coral Gables Gazette staff
In 2015, in a town of 13,000 in Jalisco, Mexico, a group of women began crocheting for a patron saint’s feast day. They began crocheting. By 2019 they had set a Guinness World Record for the largest handmade crochet pavilion ever created. By 2022 they had broken their own record, covering more than 8,000 square meters of their town’s historic streets in handwoven color. Their work has since traveled to Dubai, to museums, and to public spaces across the world.
Next month it comes to Giralda Plaza.
The City of Coral Gables has announced the 2026 Giralda Sky Series, a program of two consecutive overhead installations that will transform the pedestrian promenade at Giralda Avenue from May through October. The first — Cielo Tejido: A Woven Sky — will be on view from May through July. The second, Giralda in Bloom: A Floral Canopy, follows from August through October. Both are free and open to the public.
The installation and the women who made it
Cielo Tejido — the name means “woven sky” in Spanish — is the work of Foundation Cielo Tejido, a civil association of women artisans from Etzatlán, Jalisco, founded by veterinarian Lorena Ron and her mother Paloma. What began as a devotional project — the women of Etzatlán weaving fabric in honor of the Lord of Mercy for the town’s October feast — became something larger than anyone anticipated. The colored canopy they created drew international attention, brought visitors to a town previously known primarily as the gateway to historic silver mines, and eventually earned the collective a place in the Guinness World Records.
The project’s philosophy, articulated by its founders, is straightforward: “United, we are stronger.” The installations are built through collective labor — hundreds of women working together using traditional crochet techniques passed down through generations, producing panels of woven textile that are assembled into monumental overhead canopies. Through their artwork, the women of Etzatlán have been able to heal emotional wounds and combat the isolation of the pandemic years.
The Coral Gables installation will suspend handwoven textile panels above Giralda Plaza, creating a canopy rich in color, movement, and texture. The project is supported by the Consulate of Mexico, extending its reach as an act of cultural diplomacy as well as public art.
“Cielo Tejido is more than an art installation — it is a celebration of culture, community, and creativity,” said City Manager Peter Iglesias. “We are proud to bring this vibrant experience to Giralda Plaza and continue building on the success of previous installations that have activated our downtown in meaningful ways.”
The second installation: Giralda in Bloom
The series continues in August with Giralda in Bloom: A Floral Canopy, created by Impact Plan — the Portuguese design firm behind the original Umbrella Sky installation that Coral Gables hosted in 2018. That installation, which hung more than 720 colorful umbrellas above Giralda Plaza, drew more than one million visitors over two months and made the plaza one of South Florida’s most photographed public spaces. Coral Gables was the first city in South Florida and the third city in the United States to host the Umbrella Sky project.
Giralda in Bloom returns Impact Plan to the same plaza with a new concept: hundreds of floral-patterned umbrellas suspended overhead, turning the corridor into what the city describes as a dense canopy of floral-patterned umbrellas designed to provide shade and visual continuity through the late summer and early fall months.
The plaza and its history as a public art destination
Giralda Plaza has served as the city’s primary venue for large-scale public art installations since the success of Umbrella Sky established the format in 2018. The pedestrian promenade — located on the 100 block of Giralda Avenue between Ponce de León Boulevard and Galiano Street — is one of the few spaces in Coral Gables designed specifically for the kind of foot traffic and dwell time that immersive public art generates. Subsequent installations, including Golden Sky and The Water Below Us, have continued the tradition of transforming the overhead space above the plaza into a civic cultural experience.
The 2026 series extends that tradition across the city’s peak outdoor months, offering residents and visitors a reason to linger on the plaza from the spring through the fall — and giving the corridor a sustained identity as a destination for public art that is genuinely made, not manufactured.
The women of Etzatlán began weaving their sky as an act of devotion to a patron saint. What arrives in Coral Gables next month is the product of a decade of collective work — and a reminder that public space can still be shaped, quite literally, by human hands.
