Usually in Florida, summer time is when you don’t want to talk about fabric. Or if you do, it’s the swimsuit or wetsuit kind of material you want to be discussing. Well, The Arts Center, located in downtown St. Petersburg, has a different plan in mind this year.

 

Launching today and continuing through August 16, The Arts Center is featuring “Fabulous Fiber Summer Exhibitions.”

In addition to “Salsa y Salsa,” a juried exhibition of Florida and Caribbean artists that coincides with a biennial conference sponsored by the Handweavers’ Guild of America, and a display from nationally recognized fiber artist and author Laura Militzer Bryant called “Crossings,” The Arts Center is featuring “Practical to Poetic: Women’s Handicraft Revisited.” Curated by Sangoyemi Ogunsanya, “Women’s Handicraft” shows the work of three artists—Jenny Hart, Olek and Tamar Stone—whose traditional craftwork stretch the home-front boundaries to take their pieces into the realm of art.

 

In other words, if this stuff makes you sweat, it’s not because of heavy materials and burdensome forms that your imagination just can’t take on a hot and muggy Florida day. It’s just because it’s good.

 

The Arts Center, 719 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-822-7872, www.theartscenter.org.