2024 Class Gift

 

Upon entering the lobby of The Chestnut Hill School, one’s eye is immediately drawn upward by the vaulted ceiling.  And now, thanks to the generosity of the Class of 2024 parents, one of the first things that visitors see is a joyful hand-crafted mobile with birds flying around a smiling sun, moving constantly with the breeze like the children that it watches over. 

 

Says gift co-chair Fan Du P’24, “We wanted to give a class gift that would be sustainable, artistic, and would dress up the lobby area where the first impressions of CHS are made. The sixth-grade class representatives considered a number of options, but were immediately drawn to the idea of the mobile.”  Jessica Gee-Burko P’24, committee co-chair, added “Through conversations with the development office, we understood that the mobile should not only be beautiful but should also be meaningful to the graduating sixth graders and reflect the ideals and mission of CHS.”

 

Gee-Burko, herself an artist, immediately took on the task of finding a mobile and sculpture artist to make a special piece for the lobby. “The art of creating mobiles is highly specialized and the more I researched, the more I realized that we needed to find someone whose focus is that type of three-dimensional work.”

The committee unanimously selected local artist Mark Davis of Boston.  “We had several conversations and meetings with Mark, he viewed the CHS website, and created the uplifting design of birds in flight around the sun. He also made sketches and showed us color samples before he constructed the mobile, then sent images and video as he was building it. The great attention to detail combined with his talent is what made the mobile so perfect for the space,” said Gee-Burko.