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St. Joseph County’s courthouse has sat in the heart of downtown South Bend since the late 1800s. In Hamilton County, the courthouse looks over downtown Noblesville and its surrounding businesses. And in Vanderburgh County, the old courthouse resides mere steps from the Indiana-Kentucky border and the Ohio River.
These “secular cathedrals” as Doug Church calls them, have served as the center of their communities since the 19th century.
“It was because people were close enough to a frontier environment that they appreciated the fact that having the rule of law available to resolve disputes in a peaceful way meant that you could have a business, raise a family, all in a stable environment,” said Church, a partner at Church Church Hittle and Antrim.
Despite their celebrated status at the dawn of the Hoosier state, some of the buildings have been torn down and replaced with more modern structures for several reasons.
The Marion County courthouse, for example, was torn down on East Washington Street in 1961 following the construction of the City-County Building. Now, the county’s courts are located on the Criminal Justice Campus, which opened on the southeast side of downtown Indianapolis.
In light of the change, Church and several artists around the state are memorializing a piece of Indiana’s legal and architectural history with the long-awaited presentation of 92 pieces of art depicting each of the state’s county courthouses.
Acquiring artists
A celebration of the project will take place Aug. 1 at the Indiana Landmarks Center. At that time, the public can view each of the pieces created by artists from around the state.
Collecting the artwork has been a passion project of Church’s for around 17 years.
Back in 2007, Church chaired the Courthouse Art Project when he started his term as president of the Indiana State Bar Association, The Indiana Lawyer reported in 2016. The project got a second wind in 2016 when it was designated as a state bicentennial legacy project.
Church said he pursued the project because he wanted to find ways to integrate local bar associations into the state bar association. He saw the effort as a way to commemorate the intersection of law and daily life.
As project leaders worked on outreach, counties stepped forward to join in the efforts.
“I got the Hamilton County Bar Association, my hometown bar, to donate the first painting, which we unveiled at the inauguration ceremony when I became president, and challenged other local bar associations then to follow up,” Church said.
Approaching artists to commission the pieces took on several different forms. While a large majority of artists were contacted through local bar associations, Church himself reached out to some individually.
Karen Christensen joined the project when Church contacted the Watercolor Society of Indiana, of which she’s a member. At the time, Christensen committed to painting two courthouses but eventually went on to paint four.
She believes the project is important in commemorating the state’s history, depicted in the buildings’ architecture.
“Some of these buildings are deteriorating or falling down and are being rebuilt, but they’re being rebuilt to the modern architecture…not necessarily the way they were years ago,” Christensen said.
Cathleen Huffman, another artist from the Watercolor Society, painted several pieces for the project, too. A preservationist with a passion for historical architecture, Huffman joined the courthouse project while completing her own work documenting the state’s historic grain elevators in watercolor.
She noted that a unique aspect of Church’s project is the use of different mediums to depict the historical buildings.
While several pieces are painted, either through watercolor or a different method, other artists took on a less traditional approach. Newton County’s courthouse is expressed through embroidery.
Huffman reiterated Christensen’s sentiments when emphasizing the necessity of capturing the courthouses as a looking glass into the state’s history.
“They [the courthouses] spoke so much to the area where they were built, the architecture that that county supported,” Huffman said. “It’s just part of our early history.”
Law and community
The project, and its upcoming unveiling, accomplishes several goals Church set out to achieve.
Apart from wanting to integrate bar associations across the state, Church said the project shows just how significant the courthouses, and what they represent, are in communities.
“In many instances, they’re the center of the county seat, I mean literally the center of the county seat,” he said. “They’re the most architecturally significant building. They’re the biggest building in many cases.”
And the buildings aren’t just centrally located in their towns, but centrally significant to the functioning of society.
This sentiment struck Huffman when she first heard Church talk about it.
“He would talk about the importance of the courthouse, and how in our state’s early days, the courthouse was a place where anybody could go to peacefully resolve any issues they had,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s so powerful, yet so simple.’”
Throughout the project, and now in its public debut, state and local bar associations have supported Church’s efforts.
Chuck Dunlap, president and CEO of the Indiana Bar Foundation, said the project is in line with the bar foundation’s work to encourage civic education across Indiana. After the exhibit ends, the collection will go to the bar foundation.
“It’s a great way to sort of send the message about the importance of the law, the legal profession, the courthouse as a manifestation of that and the anchor for the community, but yet still be able to have those individual community perspectives through the art itself and the artist,” Dunlap said.
Some of the artists who commissioned pieces are also part of the legal community themselves, another remarkable layer to the project, Dunlap said.
Church said that throughout the course of this work, local leaders have come to realize the importance of these courthouses and their place in the local community.
“As time has gone on, county commissioners and citizens in the counties have appreciated the fact that these buildings have a very incredible historic significance to life in their communities, and they’ve worked hard to preserve them,” he said.
The event is free to attend and open to the public. For more information, visit indianalandmarks.org.•
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