Mission

Vashon Center for the Arts, a collaborative and community-based organization, provides a center for the arts on Vashon Island, initiates quality arts experiences for all ages and creates opportunities for artists to perform and exhibit their work.

Land Acknowledgment

Vashon Island is the traditional homeland of the sx̌ʷəbabš (pronounced Schwa-ah-babsh) people, a once thriving Native community decimated by colonization. VCA is committed to stewarding this land, fostering creativity, and honoring indigenous culture through the arts.

Diversity and Inclusion

We celebrate diversity in all aspects of the work we do and support an environment of inclusion, racial equity, and social justice in our programming and operations. We welcome all individuals to our campus and steward them with respect and dignity. We hold our patrons and all affiliates to the same standard: our home is a center for all, regardless of race, place of origin, sex, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or class.

About

Together we built one of the largest and most comprehensive community arts organizations in the Pacific Northwest

For more than 55 years Vashon Allied Arts, and now Vashon Center for the Arts, has been a foundation stone for the island’s art and cultural scene. Since that time, the organization has grown in every possible way to become the largest non-profit on Vashon and home to five uniquely different program areas: visual arts, performing arts, arts education, dance, and Vashon Artists in Schools.

It was a constellation of members, donors, volunteers, patrons, friends, board members, and staff members that grew, supported, and loved our organization over that past half-century. The group numbers in the thousands and the footprints this family of supporters has left can still be seen stretching in all directions.

Thanks to the wonderful support of our donors, members, grantors, and patrons, in 2022 we were able to live our mission through our five program areas:

• Arts Education: 72 classes offered, 493 students enrolled, 32 local artist instructors employed
• Vashon Artists in Schools: 18 residencies, 27 teaching artists, 1,136 students and 42 classroom teachers engaged
• Vashon Center for Dance: 95 classes offered, 716 students enrolled, 9 instructors employed
• Visual Arts: 260 artists exhibited, 321 pieces sold, $86,000 artist commissions awarded
• Performing Arts in Katherine L White Hall: 112 performances, 380 performing artists, 19 livestream broadcasts, 19 non-profit partners, 31 events FREE to youth, and 12,836 tickets issued

But we do more than that. We are part of the greater Vashon artistic spirit, committed to the idea that Art is a necessary part of our present and our future, where Art, in all forms, leads us back to our humanity, to rediscovering our sense of joy and play, to laying full claim to our inner artist, to healing the world.  Sound impossible? 

Why settle for anything less.

Support What You Love. Make Time for Art