As students roamed the area around the art studios during the last three weeks of school, they may have heard music playing from the Durham Community Room. The sound comes from Sixth Formers Peter Kaplan, Fisher Bond, Judah Cannon, and Ned Cutler, who have been hard at work creating a mural that will reside on the wall next to the outside basketball court.
The mural celebrates the school’s winter sports teams.
“We have all been pretty involved in the arts program at Haverford ,and we thought that this was a good way to culminate our experience here,” Kaplan said.
Bond echoed this sentiment.
“Out on the lacrosse wall there are already two murals there,” Bond said. “There is a blank panel, and we all love art, so it felt right and felt like a good way to make our impact on the school that will be there for 10-15 years.”
The project began prior to graduation projects. Kaplan had been planning this mural ever since his sophomore year, right before COVID-19 broke out.
“I was playing lacrosse on the wall one day, and I noticed that winter sports were not recognized,” Kaplan said. “I went to Mr. Fox, and he helped me get approval from [then Head of School] Dr. Nagl, Mr. Castertano, and Mr. Murphy.”
Kaplan also had to consult the outdoor design committee of the school. Afterwards, the group began an iterative design process, working through multiple designs of the mural.
“There were a lot of designs when we first started, but we were able to narrow it down to three, then one,” Kaplan said.
It was surprisingly difficult to staple the pieces together on the wall. We had to spend a lot of time making it straight and flat. The painting has gone relatively fast.
Peter Kaplan ’22
“Even now,” Cannon said, “we are still tweaking it as we are finishing it.”
The first thing they did was put together the canvas, made out of a thin, paintable fabric.
“We measured the wall and made sure the fabric was cut to the appropriate length,” Kaplan said. “It was surprisingly difficult to staple the pieces together on the wall. We had to spend a lot of time making it straight and flat. The painting has gone relatively fast.”
The group projected an image on the wall to aid them in the painting process.
The athletes on the mural are based on students in the graduating Class of 2022.
“The basketball player is Isaiah Boyd, the squash player is Mitav Nayak, the hockey player is Peter Kaplan, and the wrestler is Max Rosenberger,” Cannon said.
“The last figure is a swimmer/diver,” Bond said. “You can’t really see their face in the painting, so it’s kind of a generic guy.”
As they wrap up the painting, the group will take it down from the community room and put it up on the basketball court wall. They will finish it with a clear coat to protect it from the weather, allowing future generations to see all three sports seasons represented in a public space.
You must be logged in to post a comment.