If you'd like to buy art made by people who live here, the gallery at 18 North 2nd Street shows work by 46 exhibiting local artists, along with rotating themed shows. It's just off Centre Street in downtown Fernandina Beach, and the building is easy to spot thanks to the colorful mosaic that wraps around it and its courtyard. The nonprofit behind it was the Island Art Association for decades and changed its name to the Island Art Centre in 2026, and its website and event listings still use both names.
A small group of local artists started the organization in 1975, and it's still a co-op run largely by volunteers. In 2001 the members bought this property and turned an old restaurant into the gallery. By 2010, gallery sales and Shrimp Festival revenue had paid for an Art Education Center on the same site. The group also administers the juried fine art and crafts show at the Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival every spring.
The education center keeps a steady schedule:
- Drop-in studio sessions on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons
- Free children's art classes one Saturday a month
- Life drawing sessions, a photographers' group and a ukulele group
- Sundays on Second, free classes taught by professional artists on the third Sunday
- A monthly Art Social with an educational presentation
Local and visiting artists teach their own classes and workshops there too, and the association funds scholarships for young artists. On the second Saturday of each month, the gallery holds an evening art walk with a featured artist.
Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Monday, and it's closed Tuesdays. For lunch nearby, Timoti's Seafood Shak is a block over on North 3rd Street.