The Interurban Center for the Arts has a long history of arts development in the communities between Tacoma and Seattle. In its early years the Interurban Center provided a variety of programs locally. They included programs as extensive as having the Seattle Repertory Theater and Ashland Shakespearean Festival perform at the Auburn Performing Arts Center, to presenting several Fine Arts Series at Green River Community College, to conducting practical, technical workshops for local artists and forming one of the largest pool of voices in the interurban region at their Interurban Choral Festival.
As the Arts Commissions throughout the region grew and started to present quality theater programming, the Center changed its focus to Arts in Education. Beginning in 1984 with only two elementary schools, it began the Interurban Picture Program. In 2006 we changed the name to the Interurban Art Docent Program. We celebrate our twenty third year of managing a regional program for elementary school visual arts.
The Interurban Art Docent Program, sponsored by the Green River Community College Foundation, provides everything a school needs to provide a quality visual arts program in their elementary school. The Center loans large Master and Ethnic prints, information packets for each print, workshops on how to present arts to children, how to successfully link the art concepts discussed to an in class art project produced by the children. Our projects are success oriented, adapted to the state Essential Academic Learning Requirements and can be completed in twenty minutes. Tours to local museums, additional educational opportunities, and a library of educational resources are also provided for volunteer participants in our program.
