![\"Florida](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/01AEA4F7C10B2A2204FA306752FFAC00.jpg\")
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – In addition to the craft, Florida CraftArt’s “Against The Grain”<\/a> hope to show woodworking can be used to create pure art.<\/p>\n “There’s so much more to it than just functional furniture,” guest curator Kurt Raschke said.\u00a0<\/p>\n But there are furniture pieces on display at the exhibit, including tables, cabinets and a unique bench that uses small wood boxes to create “memory” on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Get to know them:<\/p>\n Long-time studio furniture artist Raul Darriba has three pieces in the exhibit. “Businessman” hangs on the wall, featuring a door using inlay-colored designs. Opening the door reveals a completely different-looking storage system.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Wood’s been around forever,” Darriba said. “It’s a natural product that can be made to resemble anything.”<\/p>\n Another piece, “Black Ice”, is a small cabinet that features a design that mimics the look of broken ice. Darriba hopes his pieces will be viewed as much more than simply furniture.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I want folks who have the chance to own them to have something special, something that you can hand down to another generation,” Darriba said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n The exhibition features a couple of pieces that move, or kinetic pieces.\u00a0<\/p>\n “If you have one thing moving in the gallery, you’re really going to pay attention,” artist Mauro Wieser said.\u00a0<\/p>\n With that attention, Wieser hopes people take the time to contemplate his pieces. “I Don’t Have The Tools” features a motorized hammer constantly rising slowly and then falling quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The idea behind it is that we all have that guy in our life that can fix anything but is afraid to address their mental health or their other struggles” Wieser said. “There’s this connotation with weakness for men when you’re seeking out help.”<\/p>\n “The Struggle Bot” is a small wooden bot, held back by his own wires, unable to reach an off switch. The hands make a noticeable scratching sound as they move.\u00a0<\/p>\n “That’s just another commentary on sort of the world and just the struggles we all deal with,” Wieser said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wieser views his pieces through a humorous lens, despite the series topics they bring up.\u00a0<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n “I hope they can kind of look at it and think to themselves, okay, so woodworking can be whatever. Woodworking can be pure art. Woodworking could still be a piece of furniture. Woodworking would be guitars. Woodworking can be anything that we want it to be,” Raschke said. “I really hope that more and more people think to themselves, I can do this. I can maybe take this step and do these kinds of things. I want to see more people embracing this, and hopefully it’ll push it and hopefully will grow it as an art form.”<\/p>\n The Source: FOX 13 photojournalist Barry Wong gathered the information for this story.<\/p>\n St. Petersburg<\/a>Pinellas County<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – In addition to the craft, Florida CraftArt’s “Against The Grain” hope to show woodworking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[47,28,30,29,115,1157,199,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-5598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pinellas","14":"tag-st-petersburg","15":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/snapshot-7.jpg\")
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