When Linda Stein was growing up, she says, she was told, "Good girls shouldn't play with knives."  So what did she do?  She created works of art from machetes.  The results are on display at the Jamaica Arts Center, where an entire room is filled floor to ceiling with machete blades.

I have taken this weapon, a potentially destructive blade, and converted it into a constructive form," Ms. Stein said. "By doing that, I am visually controlling violence."  She starts with machetes from China, files the blades to dull their edges, then bends and combines them with wood. Some works are suspended from the ceiling. "When they float, they take on this soft presence," she said. What intrigues her, she added, is the power of the steel blade contrasted with the soft roundness of its curve.

Jamaica Arts Center, 161-04 Jamaica Avenue; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; free; (718) 658-7400