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The Thread That Wouldn’t Break

The Thread That Wouldn’t Break
The Unseen Thread opens next week at The Studio@620 featuring works by over a dozen Tampa Bay artists. Photo courtesy The Studio@620

At The Studio@620, art and activism meet in a blaze of color and memory.

By Avery Anderson

At first glance, The Unseen Thread looks like a gallery show. But step closer and you’ll feel it — a low current of rebellion disguised as beauty. These works don’t whisper; they hum.

On the walls of The Studio@620, you’ll find paintings, mixed media and textile pieces by nearly twenty women artists — from Latonya Hicks to Glenyse Thompson to ArttByLexx — each tugging on a shared line of memory. The show’s curators, Debbie Garrett and Freddie Hughes, call it “a vibrant and powerful exhibition dedicated to celebrating the essential, undeniable presence and creative power of women across all generations and cultures.” Translation: the women who built the world finally get the frame.

Presented with Pinellas Diaspora Arts Project (PDAP), part of the 2025 Tampa Bay Urban Futures Festival, The Unseen Thread runs in tandem with Cadillac Crew, the play, in the same space, about the women who powered the Civil Rights Movement but never made it into the photos. It’s a perfect echo — theatre and gallery speaking across the same room, reminding us how easily women’s stories get edited out of history and how thrilling it is when they don’t.

PDAP’s involvement gives the show roots — tying local women artists of the African diaspora to a larger continuum of resistance and creation. “There’s a thread that stretches across time,” the curators write, “invisible, yet absolutely unbreakable.” That thread winds through brushstrokes, fabric, metal, and the act of showing up — to make, to remember, to demand space.

By the time you leave, you realize the title isn’t metaphorical. The unseen thread is you — the viewer — standing in a room built by women who refused to be invisible.

If You Go

The Unseen Thread: Women’s Art as Movement Presented by The Studio@620 & Pinellas Diaspora Arts Project Curated by Debbie Garrett and Freddie Hughes

Opening night reception Oct 30 On view through November 17 620 1st Ave S, St. Petersburg

RSVP for the opening reception

  • Latonya Hicks
  • Eunice Park
  • Brianna McCord
  • Demetasphere
  • Melshonda Lowe-Dobbins
  • Distinctly Bella
  • Selenaferrerart
  • Glenyse Thompson
  • Bridget Marshal
  • Brenda Segoviano
  • Takeya Trayer
  • Charla Y. Gaglio
  • Donna M. Richardson
  • Tavia Reyes
  • Jude Bagatti
  • Rachel Stewart
  • Joy Garrett
  • ArttByLexx
  • Elaine Chambliss Dogan

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