Governor Maura Healey bucked tradition Wednesday when, instead of unveiling a framed portrait of a former governor to hang in her State House office per tradition, she revealed an empty frame.
Usually, governors select a predecessor they have a connection to when choosing a portrait to hang in their ceremonial office. Charlie Baker chose John Volpe, for whom his father worked when Volpe served as President Richard Nixon’s transportation secretary. Deval Patrick chose John Andrew, a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement who helped organize the first Black regiment in the Civil War.
But Healey asked Massachusetts students to help her choose, in the form of an essay contest. She said she was particularly touched by an essay submitted by high school students Julian Hynes of Amherst-Pelham Regional High School, and Ja’liyah Santiago and Adniley Velez of Holyoke Community Charter School, who proposed hanging an empty frame.
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The collaborative essay, titled “Inspiring Change and Dangerous Hope: Unequal Representation in the Commonwealth” made the case that an empty frame would represent people whose voices “are not always represented or heard or reflected in the halls of power,” Healey said at the unveiling event.
“Look forward not back for your inspiration,” the group wrote. “Look at the young, the poor, the people of color, and the ones who need the most help. Look at the empty frame and then around the table and ask, ‘Who is not represented here?’ Then, break free from the symbolic fetters that bind you and invite them.”
Healey, who is the first woman elected governor in the state and among the first lesbian governors in the country, said she also hopes visitors look at the frame and imagine what the governor’s office could represent in the future.
Velez, 14, told the Globe that she was inspired to “look at what we would want for ourselves and others in our communities.”
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“It would be a great opportunity to change a little bit of history,” said Velez, who is in the eighth-grade.
The students who participated in the essay contest also selected a portrait for Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll to hang in her office, which is down the hall from Healey’s. Thirteen of the student essays nominated Jane Swift, the first woman to serve in the corner office who made history in 2001 when Governor Paul Cellucci resigned to become US ambassador to Canada. His departure bumped Swift, then lieutenant governor, into the top job.
Her portrait, painted by Sarah Belchetz-Swenson of Williamsburg, shows Swift in a black suit standing in the governor’s office, with its blue walls and white trim (restoration has returned the walls to their original green). In the portrait, she holds a stack of legislation tied with a red ribbon, which Swift said symbolized her terms as a state senator.
Swift, who was in attendance at the unveiling Wednesday, was the first Massachusetts governor to commission a female artist for her official portrait.
Driscoll said Swift is someone who “broke down a lot of barriers for us.”
For the last several months, the spot on the forest-green wall in Healey’s office has been empty. The contest was announced in early January and the deadline was extended in February.
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.