A Day in the Life of our Vashon Center for the Arts

Time: The future…a (warm) day in late June.

Place: The newly completed arts campus encompasses the area from the parking lot south of the Blue Heron building to the north, ending at the corner of Cemetery Road and Vashon Highway SW.  The campus features a new building which houses an art gallery, an acoustically wonderful space for chorale, opera, chamber music, jazz, rock and roll, dance and theatrical performances, as well as a dressing room, greenroom and loading dock, all of which double as classrooms, prop and costume areas, a kitchen and administrative offices.  The space also features the rehabilitated and reconfigured Blue Heron building complete with two large classrooms and a refurbished upstairs dance studio upstairs. The new arts center building and the historic Blue Heron building are connected by paths which pass through a landscaped area lined with trees and plantings. East of the campus parking area, accessible by path from the arts campus and from Cemetery Road, is a wetland and sculpture garden. 

Morning: - People arrive at the Blue Heron for a Fusion Exercise class and VAA staff  arrive at their offices in the Blue Heron and new arts building at the north end of the campus. 

Mid Morning: - A group wanders over from a morning coffee klatch at the Roasterie. They enter the corner door of the art center to check out the new gallery show, their curiosity piqued by glimpses through the large windows on the building’s north end of the lobby.  

All Day Long: - Kids arrive (lots of kids!) for summer camps.  A musical theatre group meets in the performance space, a clowning class meets in the greenroom of the new building, art camp begins in the Blue Heron classrooms and spills out onto the commons between the two buildings and the lawn behind the Blue Heron building. A photography camp group walks into the wetland to explore and photograph the thriving flora and fauna.  As always, the sound of many dancing feet pounding the floor above may be heard as Blue Heron Summer Dance classes unfold. 

(100% of requests for scholarship assistance to all classes are met by partial or full tuition assistance).

Afternoon: - Volunteers arrive for a planning meeting for the Art Auction. They stop in to the administrative offices and are directed to the dressing room/classroom space at the south end of the arts building. Technical helpers enter through the shop door on the east side of the art center and head to the performance space to place portable acoustical structures and set lighting for tonight’s performance of the Vashon Chamber Music concert.  Other helpers arrive at the Blue Heron to set up for a poetry reading in one of the large classrooms.

Evening: - Volunteers arrive to prepare beverages and appetizers for tonight’s performances; the gallery and lobby spaces of the new building are abuzz with people checking out the artwork, a large sculpture placed to take advantage of the barnlike height of the ceiling in the lobby catches their attention. People enter the performance space and settle into their comfortable, padded seats.  They look around and see fellow islanders easily in this warm and inviting hall.  Lights dim, performers enter and the music begins. The sound is acoustically perfect. 

A poetry reading begins at the Blue Heron.  The audience is at home in this space; they’ve been coming here for years and love the feel and smell of the creaky building (but are grateful for newly installed ventilation!) on this warm evening in June.

Late evening: - Staff locks up the art center and the Heron building and head home, ready for another full day tomorrow and many years to come of community art on Vashon.