A rare show of neon artwork will light up the Workshop Gallery in Vineyard Haven for the first half of July, opening during the town’s First Friday celebration on July 2.

Keith Cerone’s neon works will come as a surprise to those who may be imagining pure linear curves of light, like abstract advertising signs or glowing Jay Lagemann sculptures.

A glass artist from western Massachusetts, Mr. Cerone uses neon tubes with restraint, as a focal element in pieces that also incorporate wood and other media. The wood around his neon is often charred, suggesting a far greater heat than this low-plasma gas is capable of generating.

The exhibition, on display July 2 through July 14, also includes works by Chloe Kottwitz, whose neon shapes tend toward the playfully representational. While Mr. Cerone brings natural elements to his abstract neon pieces, Ms. Kottwitz seeks nature itself with her lighted boat paddles, flowers and tree trunks.

The neon exhibition is the first full show of the summer for the gallery, which had a soft opening Memorial Day weekend with The Trace of the Sun, an exhibition by abstract painter Kristin Texeira.

Painted in Ireland before the pandemic, Ms. Texeira’s contemplative, colorful geometrics reflect her deep study of the nature of time during a two-month solo residency without internet access.

Their brief appearance on the Vineyard, enroute to an engagement in New York city, was due to the Workshop Gallery’s creative business model, in which the rent from artists’ studios helps underwrite gallery operations.

“We don’t feel the need to necessarily show work that we know is going to sell,” said Wil Sideman, a glass artist and member of the Workshop cooperative. “We are subsidizing the space.”

The artists also partner with their neighbor, Althea Designs, and other Island makers for pop-up events, called Fine Art Fridays, in the parking lot.

“We set up tables; we make our art; people can make something if they feel like it,” said Workshop artist Elysha Roberts, a jeweler who also creates handmade paper designs.

A former ship-model workshop on the Vineyard Haven waterfront, the building was reborn as an artists’ cooperative in 2014, with painters David VanLandingham and Terry Crimmen among the founding members. Currently, the four studios upstairs provide work spaces for Mr. Sideman, Ms. Roberts, seamstress-designer Trish Ginter and photographer Ray Ewing.

Downstairs, three small rooms comprise the gallery, where a diverse line-up of exhibitions promises an intriguing summer of art.

“It’s kind of a fluid space for exhibitions and events, but the focus is on bringing things to the community that wouldn’t otherwise be on the Island,” Mr. Sideman said.

Following the neon show, a collection of abstracts by Island pop-art painter Craig Miner opens July 16 and runs through the end of the month.

Mr. Ewing, a Gazette photojournalist and professor of photography at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, Calif., has a solo show August 6 through August 18, followed on August 20 by an exhibition of photographs by Brian Kelley, a Brooklyn photographer who documents champion trees — trees of significant or record-holding stature, such as Edgartown’s famed pagoda tree.

Mr. Kelley accompanies his photographs with meticulous notes and even audio recordings, Mr. Sideman said.

On Sept. 1, the Workshop opens a show by Abe Goodale, an artist and illustrator from Belfast, Me. whose watercolors bring to life the working waterfront. The show is timed to coincide with the Moffett Cup and the Pat West Gaff Rig and Schooner Race, said Mr. Sideman, who has his own connection with Vineyard Haven’s waterfront industries, having worked for Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway when he first came to the Vineyard years ago.

As for Ms. Roberts, her grandfather worked in the gallery building when it was the Van Riper workshop two generations ago, making ship models for the military.

“This place is special to all of us,” said Mr. Sideman, who praised building owner Simone De Sorcy for making it available to artists.

“We’re very fortunate to be here. Without it, we certainly would have left the Island,” he said.