For some, February is a cold, dead time of year, where all the charm of winter has given way to Seasonal Affective Disorder and an increasingly whiny yearning for signs of spring. But others, bowing to the inevitabilities of Michigan’s most severe season, embrace this atmospheric lockdown as an opportunity for creative indoor pastimes.

Public Pool is at no loss of ideas for you this winter.

Such is the tone over at Public Pool in Hamtramck, which is hunkered down for the winter with “Picnics in the Polar Vortex,” an indoor recreation of “the collective wandering and inspired observations of Picnic Club Detroit.”

The Picnic Club’s iconic logo, available on homemade patches.

Evidence of the Picnic Club’s 2013 wanderings.

Says gallery organizer Steve Hughes, “Picnic Club is an open group of artists, writers, city planners, musicians, naturalists, activists and others. Their mission is to foster deeper understandings of the city surrounding us through inquiry, play and picnics. This show marks the first formal exhibition of their collective work.”

Tools of the trade…

I dropped in on artist Megan Heeres’ Saturday afternoon paper-making workshop, which was fogging the gallery windows with industrious efforts to add to the expanding wall of paper circles, made from local invasive species harvested during gentler seasons. Heeres walked me through one of her handmade books, which further leverages the paper that she makes, harvesting invasives such as phragmites from all over the city.

Paper-makers take the floor.

Megan Heeres displays one of the books made from her paper. On the wall behind, you can see the growing installation of circles.

There are a number of nature-hike collections for perusal, and enchanting and interactive shadow display, and an impressive blanket fort, not to mention a coterie of meditations and suggestions for developing your own creative oasis during the ravages of winter.

Blanket Fort to the rescue!

Don’t miss the poetry of summer in the dead of winter.

If you can manage to get out of the house, this Saturday, February 21st from 7-10 p.m. will be the Good Tyme Writer’s Buffet, a potluck accompanied by six writers on the subject of “Summertime,” including Jack Cheng, Jacqui Au, Terry Blackhawk, Anna Clark, Tunde Wey, and of course Steve Hughes. Come in from the cold!

Public Pool: 3309 Caniff St., Hamtramck; 313-405-7665; apublicpool.com