GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Thousands of people conduct business inside the Clay County Courthouse annually, so the goal of this program is for this large public building to be an inviting venue, as much as possible. The Art in the Courthouse program began 13 months ago and has been very well received and enjoyed.

The Art Guild of Orange Park helped launch this effort as the debut exhibit last year, and now they’re back with another amazing exhibit to share with our community through April.

For their latest summer project, the Art Guild of Orange Park challenged their members to create artwork depicting the flora and fauna of Florida. The result is an awe-inspiring, colorful gallery filled with a wide variety of scenes of local plants and animals – beautiful.

The program is a partnership involving the Clerk/Comptroller Tara Green’s office, Clay County judiciary, local art groups, Clay County government, civic organizations, the school district and more. While done at other courthouses around the state and country, this gallery remains a first for the courthouse. It is a permanent space for the continuous display of community art. Displays rotate through the gallery every one-to-three months and space expansion is being considered.

Artists from the following groups are featured here in 2023: First Coast Quilters Guild, Art Guild of Orange Park, Clay County Fair Art Contest, First Coast Plein Air Painters, Jacksonville Art Guild and Youth Art and Photography from the Augusta Savage Center.

“The response from courthouse staff and the community at large has been outstanding, so we are excited and proud to have these groups taking part in our program,” Green said.

The Art in the Courthouse Gallery is accessible any time the Clay County Courthouse is open to the public, typically Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m.