Field trip! Pack a cooler full of turkey sandwiches, fresh strawberries, cheesesticks and cran-raisens, then load up the neighborhood kids and head on over to downtown St. Petersburg for an afternoon of crazy eye-popping fun exploring an indoor coral reef at the Florida Craftsmen Gallery.
This summer exhibit is an astounding burst of colorful yarns woven into varieties of coral, shells, fish, eels, rays (no baseballs!) and so much more to replicate the realities of a delicate coral reef in health and under seige during an oil spill.
More than 280 knitters from all over Florida, five states and four countries contributed to the display.
The
Florida Craftsmen Gallery also will offer classes -- for adults as well as children -- and family fun days through the summer. Check the
gallery website to see what's coming up the week you want to go.
The satellite exhibit is part of the
Worldwide Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project created by Margaret and Christine Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring in Los Angeles, CA.
Diane Egner is publisher and managing editor of 83 Degrees Media. Comments? Contact 83 Degrees.
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Diane Egner is a community leader and award-winning journalist with more than four decades of experience reporting and writing about the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. She serves on the boards of the University of South Florida Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications Advisory Council, The Institute for Research in Art (Graphicstudio, the Contemporary Art Museum, and USF’s Public Art Program) Community Advisory Council, Sing Out and Read, and StageWorks Theatre Advisory Council. She also is a member of Leadership Florida and the Athena Society. A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BA in journalism, she won the top statewide award for editorial writing from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors while at The Tampa Tribune and received special recognition by the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists for creative work as Content Director at WUSF Public Media. Past accomplishments and community service include leadership positions with Tampa Tiger Bay Club, USF Women in Leadership & Philanthropy (WLP), Alpha House of Tampa Bay, Awesome Tampa Bay, Florida Kinship Center, AIA Tampa Bay, Powerstories, Arts Council of Hillsborough County, and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. Diane and her husband, Sandy Rief, live in Tampa.