Sitting cross-legged by herself in front of the senior eagle, Christie Chen (12) is utterly focused on the task at hand. Each stroke is precise, using the perfect blend of whites, blues, and greens to convey the detailed image of the crashing wave on the base of the senior class’ eagle. Completely drawn into her creation, she barely notices the hours passing.

Painting the eagle during Homecoming week is not the only time you can see her actively participating in spirit events. Helping out with the skit in the fall and choreographing the dance in the spring, Christie uses her many talents to support her class.

“If we need anything, we know that we can go to Christie, and we know that Christie will put her best foot forward on that,” said Class of 2019 treasurer Andrea Simonian (12), who has known Christie since fourth grade. “She will help out with literally anything she can.”

Although she does not have an official title, Christie still takes it upon herself to do all these tasks to the best of her abilities.

She has not always participated so widely in all of the aspects of the spirit events. In her first few years of high school, she only helped with choreographing the dances. As a dancer herself, she enjoyed working and performing alongside her friends and teammates. Christie loved how she and the other members of the varsity dance team could show people what they could do outside of their team. But as senior year drew near, she came to a realization that encouraged her to do whatever she could to help with spirit.

“We’ve been going to school with the same people for ten years, and it’s crazy to think that next year, as we graduate, we’re probably never going to in the same room with these people ever again,” she said.

Her compassion and willingness to help out and work hard does not just extend to spirit events. Instead of store-bought gifts and traditional cards, she makes most of the gifts that she gives others by hand. Whether it is a plaque or a wooden box, she pays attention to every little detail and tailors the illustrations to each person’s interests. Regardless of if it is for a friend, a teacher, or a friend of a friend, she will take time away from other activities to put her best effort into these creations.

Last year, Christie made a box for Ms. King. The four sides of the box are sky blue, encompassed by a border of white dots. Each of the sides also has a unique, intricate design of dots stemming from the corners. The top of the box depicts a white mug on a wooden table, filled with snippets of code on slips of paper, against a black backdrop, titled “a cup of java.” This box is proudly displayed on the corner of a table near the whiteboard in Ms. King’s room.

“[The box Christie made me] has a really special place, in my heart as well as on my desk,” said Susan King, upper school computer science teacher.

Her interests have also led her to pursue a future in art, especially after a summer course at UPenn introduced her to animation.

“I thought that I could give [art] up and I never thought that I would be able to do it in college, and then over the summer I did an internship and between CS and animation, I realized that I really can’t give it up. I can’t imagine not doing art in any variation,” said Christie.

Her parents had originally discouraged her from taking art as a major since they were concerned about the sustainability and stability of an art career. But as she discovered animation, pursuing art became a more viable option, with which her parents agreed, for digital art and animation became more prevalent and computer science became more integrated into other majors.

Christie’s instructor during a summer course at UPenn last summer, Jacob Rivkin, also gave her hope for a future in animation. He himself had gone into the course as a painter but came out as an animator and sculptor.

“The ability to be flexible, especially in a creative sense, is fun, but [it’s] hard to learn how to do new things when you’ve been doing one thing for so long. You kind of start over on a whole new topic,” said Christie.

Besides painting, choreography, and animation, Christie also uses her creativity to express herself in makeup. On the morning of Halloween each year, she always wakes up five hours early, at 2:00 a.m., to create a stunning masterpiece on her face, which she takes time to plan every year.

For Christie, one challenge that comes with art is seeing projects to the end, even if it starts out looking terrible. Most of the time, her pieces will not look good until the final ten percent. But persevering and keeping her vision pays off in the end, as she is left with a stunning work of art.

One example of this is her yearly Halloween makeup. Waking up early to do her makeup this year, it started off just resembling a white blob on her forehead. Even though it would be easy to give up at that point and just wipe it all off, she kept going, which resulted in an extraordinary image of an extra pair of eyes on her face.

Another of the main obstacles she faces in art is the lack of time. Even with her two hours of art class per week, she finds it hard to portion out time into animation. With the rigorous course load of her classes, balancing out her art and academics is no easy feat. Christie finds that mentally and physically separating home from work helps to reduce stress. On weekends, she sometimes spends up to 12 hours working diligently at a cafe.

“She is super driven on her goals—her goals in dance, her goals in academics, her goals in art—I can see it and it’s really inspiring,” said Sonal Muthal (12), her teammate and captain of the varsity dance team.