By Traci Newell

traci newell/town crier Ken Young, acting as Vincent Van Gogh, addressed the Los Altos School District art docents at their annual fall seminar Sept. 12. The docents begin this year with 14 new volunteers.

Vincent Van Gogh has been dead for more than a century, but he welcomed Los Altos School District art docents to their fall seminar Sept. 12 at Covington Elementary School.

Ken Young, who runs Living Artists’ Theatre, attended the seminar dressed as the Dutch painter - complete with bloody ear and accent - and shared Van Gogh’s biography and history of artwork with a room of art docents.

The docents are an all-volunteer organization that began more than 35 years ago. They visit each school in the district and conduct 41 different art lessons, from hands-on projects to art appreciation. This year the program celebrated the return of 74 docents and the addition of 14 new docents. Experienced docents train new docents over a six-month period.

The docent program has grown from 27 volunteers who taught 88 classes to 88 docents who teach nearly 650 lessons during the school year. Each docent volunteers to present about three lessons monthly, for a total time commitment of 10-12 hours a month.

Superintendent Tim Justus was on hand at the luncheon to welcome the new art docents and to praise the program.

“As programs come and go, this program has not stopped, no matter what happens due to budgets,” Justus said. “Art docents add to our overall education of the children.”

Justus reported that this year the art docent program is receiving some funding from the state, which will go toward art supplies.

LASD Board of Trustees President Margot Harrigan, who has been an art docent since 1995, was present at the seminar to give support to her fellow docents.

“The art docents are the treasure of all the community,” Harrigan said. “We do this for the love of art.”

Lisa Giovannetti announced the theme for art docents this year, “Steppin’ Out,” and introduced the new art docents board.

The lessons the docents teach are curriculum based. Art projects range from Clay Creatures in first grade to Bicycle Art in fifth grade.

This year the docents will introduce new lessons to the children in the district. Fourth-graders will receive an overview of California’s history from pre-Spanish occupation to post-statehood. Docents will demonstrate the history of the state through visual art and illustrate how artists tell the story of the land, its people and its history. Fifth- and sixth-graders will have one-point and two-point art lessons, during which students learn linear perspective and depth logically, a practice that originated during the Renaissance.

Each spring the art docents host a student art show, with an exhibit featuring the work of every child in the district.

For more information, call 947-1194.