Enhancing Education With The Arts
The arts play a pivotal role in education. Involvement in the arts supports a student’s social and emotional learning and empowers them to succeed inside school and out. Not only do arts programs motivate children to come to school, but they also help reduce stress, sharpen communication, and fuel social and emotional development. Jacksonville is fortunate to have a wealth of arts education programs across all art forms that allow our...
Success in Love & Art How Creative Couples in Jacksonville Achieve Both
Compiled by Cinda Sherman Love and marriage are two of the most perplexing subjects ever debated in human history. For instance, the Greek philosopher Plato declared, “At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.” Yet the curmudgeonly English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, “The most happy marriage I can picture would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.” So, what makes a relationship work? The answer, to most, is...
NewBeginnings for a Treasured Tradition
WJCT’s mission is: “To provide programming and services that celebrate human diversity, encourage joyful learning, and promote civic participation, all to empower citizens to improve the quality of their lives.” That mission has been met and exceeded for more than six decades, with ever-increasing participation and support of the North Florida community. Recently, dramatic federal and state funding cuts to WJCT and...
Cover Artist: Casey Matthews
Although a native of San Antonio, Texas, Casey Matthews has considered the Southeast her home for over 30 years. She studied art and art history at Texas Christian University and the University of Alabama. Her many subjects are approached with light-hearted enthusiasm and delivered with singular verve and style yet are introspective and spiritually enlightening. For Matthews, it is important not to become complacent and not to be...
The Liminal Space Between Presence and Remembering
By Vanessa Harper When I first laid eyes on Caitlin Flynn’s body of work, I felt transported in time. Some paintings took me to the rustic beaches of old Florida or Cape Cod in decades past, while others open like a doorway to what comes next. Her work suspends you between memory and imagination and captures fragments of a shared nostalgia with scenes that feel like they belong equally to someone else’s story and to your...
The Art of Music When Creativity Heals
By Brooke McKinney Artist & Communications Manager for Art with a Heart in Healthcare Art and music are more than creative outlets—they are essential parts of the healing process. For pediatric patients at Wolfson Children’s Hospital (WCH), the arts offer a powerful way to express emotions, process challenges, and rediscover joy during medical treatment. In collaboration with Art with a Heart in Healthcare (AWAHIH),...


