Art At Your Fingertips is a creative volunteer program to bring affordable visual arts education to elementary school classrooms (from developmental kindergarten through 6th grade). Its paramount objective is "to help every child feel comfortable using art as a means of expressing him or herself."

Begun in 1975 by parents dismayed by the loss of school art programs, AAYF sends volunteer docents into public and private classrooms to teach carefully selected projects combining art techniques, art history and aesthetics to more than 7,000 Palos Verdes Peninsula students each year. Additional projects are taught in three intermediate school after-school programs.

• AAYF seeks to:
• Enhance each child's creative and mental growth through meaning art experiences in a non-judgmental environment.
• Improve each child's visual perception and awareness.
• Make community resources in the arts more available to children. With the cooperation of the Palos Verdes Art Center and the Palos Verdes

Peninsula Unified School District, AAYF annually selects five art projects for the elementary schools and five for the intermediate school program. Each is designed by a local professional artist or art educator and must be adaptable for all grade levels, inexpensive (volume buying of materials cuts costs), consistent with multi-year program objectives, able to be taught by trained volunteers and have an elusive "WOW" factor.

At training workshops the artist teaches the elementary school projects to the 400+ volunteers who work in the individual classrooms. The artists themselves teach the after-school programs.

Each spring, more than 1,000 pieces of student art, representing all participating schools and grade levels, fill the Palos Verdes Art Center exhibition galleries in a month-long student exhibition.

Independent "sister" program - Young At Art, Art To Grow On, Gateway to Art and Adventures in Art - in adjacent school districts boost the total number of children served each year to approximately 41,000.

A guidebook, published several years ago, explains the AAYF system and gives practical tips to parents seeking to establish similar programs in any school district. The book costs only $45, plus $5 shipping and handling, and is available from the Palos Verdes Art Center.

Order form.

Special Mornings brings opportunities for creative expression to developmentally disabled youth and young adults through art activities designed to develop their imaginations work with a variety of media to find new ways to express their thoughts and emotions.

Special education classes from throughout Los Angeles County are eligible for the program. To apply, contact Dr. Mary Martz at 909.626.2970. Additional sessions are held with at-risk children served by the Richstone Family Center in Hawthorne.

Major funding for this program is provided by the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation.

ALPAY AWARDS

The Beverly G. Alpay Memorial Awards in the Visual Arts are designed to support working professional visual artists, college visual arts students and young people seeking to become visual artists. The goal is to encourage their careers and enhance their abilities. Emphasizing artistic merit and excellence, the awards focus on traditional visual arts media. Not included are film, video or performance art, art history or art education.

Awards are available in five categories:
• MFA Candidates (maximum $3,000)
• Undergraduate Visual Arts Students (maximum $2,500)
• High School Seniors (maximum $2,500)
• Working Visual Artists (maximum $2,000)
• Young Visual Artists (up to age 17) (maximum $500)

Artists of any age, residing or formerly residing within 25 miles of the Palos Verdes Art Center, may apply. Applications are available by mid-November each year and are due by the end of February. To receive an application, send an e-mail to .