Get Involved in the Fine Art of Volunteering!

Become a member of the Volunteer Guild
Volunteers generously provide many hours of service annually to the Fine and Performing Arts Center. Not only is such dedicated support greatly appreciated, but volunteers' precious time, interest and expertise equates to community interest and is valued monetarily as matching in-kind contributions in Arts Center grant applications.

While working closely with professional staff members and colleagues from throughout Western's resourceful community, volunteers are rewarded with the enjoyment and satisfaction of extending music, theatre, and visual art programs and services to the people of the Western North Carolina region and beyond. A Volunteer of the Year Award is presented each year.

Volunteers are encouraged to support the Arts Center at the basic membership level and receive all respective benefits plus an upgrade to 15% discount on selected museum shop merchandise.

Your interests and skills are valuable to the Arts Center in a number of areas:

Reception Desk - Front of House
Help manage ticket sales, serve as hosts on performance opening nights, give seating and program assistance, monitor, offer directions, answer visitors' questions and provide information about the art, music and theatre performance programs and activities of the Arts Center.

Development
Help secure funding needed for support of various Arts Center programs. Activities include assisting with mailings, fundraising, membership management, marketing and sales.

Special Events
Work closely with Arts Center staff to: help run special events such as Annual Members Welcome events, Arts Center Family Day events, Department of Art and Open Studio Crawls and upcoming community special events and fundraising activities; help organize an art auction or a gala evening event; inventory reception supplies, set up and decorate reception areas, serve food and beverages, and clean-up.

Docents and Gallery Teachers
Docents are trained guides who conduct tours for museum and theatre visitors. Volunteers in this area complete a special training course and commit to leading regularly scheduled tours. Gallery Teachers assist visitors of all ages at the various learning stations in the art galleries.

Outreach Services
Volunteers make art, music, and theatre educational presentations in the Arts Center Speakers Bureau program, deliver works of art to sponsors in the Corporate Art program, and assist in [ART]REACH, which provides small traveling exhibitions of original art works to locations throughout Western North Carolina. Training provided.

Exhibition and Theatre Tech Support
Assist the museum's professional staff with art registration, archival record keeping, and art exhibition preparation. Assist the Arts Center's technical director as needed with program production. Training provided.

Gallery Shop-Reception Desk
Assist in all aspects of retail operation. Customer service, store merchandising and cleaning, and receiving and pricing new merchandise are some of the duties for this corps of highly visible volunteers. Also, offer directions, answer visitors' questions, and provide information about the art, music and theatre performance programs and activities of the Arts Center.

Fine Arts Library
Assist with cataloging, slide and digital image management, and circulation of fine art library materials.

Call now! Make new friends, share your talents!

For more information, call Paul Lormand at (828) 227-2479 or Martin DeWitt of the Fine Art Museum at (828) 227-2553