West Valley Arts Council invites the public to sign up for its creative aging professional development training program.

The deadline to apply is May 16.

Creative Aging is an international movement to advance the vital relationship between creative expression and healthy aging. It is a hybrid field that focuses on creative and artistic engagement of older adults.

Two individual, all-expenses-paid training sessions for those who want to be apart of this program.

• Teaching Artists Session: May 23 to 25
For someone well trained in any form or medium within the arts that would like to make a positive lasting impact to the elderly,
Attend the creative aging informational professional training session geared for those who want to teach their skills towards the elderly. In partnership with Lifetime Arts, this training will help you gain skills in curriculum design and social engagement strategies in addition to expanded partnership opportunities to work with older adults.
Participants will learn to apply creative tools that will better serve older adults, prepare them to work with the aging population and foster lifelong learning in our growing communities.
Attendees will gain a working understanding of how to design creative aging program curriculum, and ultimately becoming inspired to get started.

• Community Educators Session: June 1 to 3
As a representative of a training organization (such as an arts and community facility, ie. senior servicing communities and centers, assisted living, public libraries, parks and recreations, etc.), you and your team will develop new programming approaches, community partners and funders while enhancing usage by older adults.
This session is geared towards community educators and public programming professionals interested in learning to offer creative aging arts education programming for older adults, with the ability to apply this specialized curriculum as professional development.
In addition, this training also features units on curriculum design and development, and will examine and demonstrate andragogical approaches to the development of skill-based, sequential instructional lessons for older adults.

Visit the Arts HQ Gallery to view its current exhibit featuring Tyler and his work.
Tyler’s goal as an artist is to give the client, whether public or private, a piece of artwork that they love and that they feel matches their own vision and dream. Working with mostly wielded steel, his work is durable, vandal resistant, and designed to last for several generations.

The Joe Tyler Solo Exhibition, will highlight the artist’s many notable contributions to cities and towns throughout the Valley. The positive impacts of his ironwork within the communities is immeasurable. This exhibition brings West Valley cities, communities, and organizations together to collectively commemorate Tyler.

Tyler has created commissioned public art projects for the cities of Tucson, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Stockton, Caliornia, Los Angeles, Queen Creek, Glendale, Peoria, Mesa, Tempe and Litchfield Park.

He has also done public art for institutions and major corporations: Arizona State University, the Desert Botanical Gardens, Del Webb Co., Good Samaritan Health Corp., Westin Hotels Corp., and the Iohono Golf Corp. in Japan.

This exhibit is free and open for viewing through May 20 during our normal business hours.