You might say that Gigi Glendinning, 52, is a member of a quintessential Chestnut Hill family. She and her brother, Andrew (now a Lafayette Hill contractor  — Glendinning Contractors — with three children); her sister, Ellen (now a baker — Sweet Productions — in Lafayette Hill with two children); and her brother, Bruce (now a senior vice-president for Berkshire Hathaway Fox and Roach, living in Flourtown with two children); all grew up in Chestnut Hill with their mom, Sandra, now a resident of The Hill at Whitemarsh; and their father, Robert, a prominent realtor with an office on Evergreen Avenue (and real estate columnist for the Local) who died at 75 in 2009 of Alzheimer's Disease.

They lived successively in houses on Prospect Avenue, then St. Martin's Lane, then Auburn Avenue in Wyndmoor and finally, in a Woodward house on Mermaid Lane. Both sons went to Chestnut Hill Academy, and both daughters went to Springside School.

"My dad never went to college himself," said Gigi, "but he provided us all with great educations. We were very lucky. By buying and then selling the houses we lived in, that's how he paid for all of our college tuitions.

“I was raised in a family that adored animals. We had dogs, a cat, birds and bunnies. We let the dogs up on the couch and on our beds; the birds flew around my room, and the rabbits and cats got regular outside time. Once I moved out on my own, I started rescuing animals, and my work to save as many as possible snowballed from there.”

After graduation from Springside in 1985, Gigi went to St. Lawrence University in New York State. Then she drove to Seattle with two friends from Wyndmoor, Elizabeth Harris Mellon and Betsy O'Neil, and lived there for a decade. "I heard there were mountains and lakes, so it sounded good to me," Gigi said.

Today Gigi lives and works from a small house in Gwynedd Valley with four rescued cats and one indoor rescued house rabbit named Junie. “No cage,” said Gigi.

Gigi was an art major in college, but on the West Coast she became a licensed massage therapist and was trained in Colorado in equine massage therapy. In 1999, she moved back to the Chestnut Hill area "to be close to my seven nieces and nephews and to work on horses here." But two years into working with horses, an unexpected brutal attack by a horse shook Gigi up enough to make her stick with massaging smaller animals and people.

A vegan for many years, Gigi has also been an animal activist and educator. Among her many volunteer activities on behalf of animals, Gigi has presented humane education assemblies at local schools such as Springside Chestnut Hill Academy and Germantown Academy. In 2007 she rescued 22 rabbits from a cruel situation in the Ambler area and found homes for them all.

In 2005 she went to New Orleans twice, once for 10 days and again for five days, to do rescue work with animals made homeless by Hurricane Katrina. In 2003 she spent three weeks in Kenya, East Africa, with Earthwatch in a program to try to save black rhinos; the same year she spent two weeks in Washington state working with chimpanzees who had been “retired” from research. In 2006 she volunteered with the highly respected Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.

One issue Gigi discusses with the students and has protested at area circuses is the presence of elephants in zoos and circuses, which she passionately opposes. In recent years she worked for Animal Defenders International (ADI), rescuing circus lions in Peru and lobbying for a wild animal circus bans on state and national level. "We are a sophisticated enough society by now to know better," she said. "To exploit these wild animals for our entertainment is simply wrong!"

In 2019 Gigi started a company called The Graphic Rabbit, which combines her artistic ability with her love of animals. She began making collages and naturally found herself incorporating animals into her designs along with colorful, artistic backgrounds that she creates.

“Framing people’s pets (or children, friends, etc.) in creative ways made perfect sense,” she explained, “So one thing led to another, and The Graphic Rabbit was born. People send me an image, and I edit, print and cut it out from the background to fit a wooden frame in a variety of sizes from Artists & Craftsman in Chestnut Hill,”

For more information: Text at 267-467-0599 or email gigiglendinning@verizon.net or visit graphicrabbit.photography. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com