She’s on level.
A Brighton Seashore high-schooler’s subway-inspired paintings may quickly grace the lapels of Brooklynites in all places after her design was plucked to characterize the borough.
Artwork-loving 17-year-old Mellina Melezhik received the first-ever “Brooklyn Pin Design Competitors,” a contest that invited Kings County residents to seize the borough’s spirit with an itty-bitty brooch.
“I used to be seeking to problem myself, however I didn’t suppose I might win!” a surprised Melezhik advised The Submit, including that the concept of 1000’s of individuals carrying her design didn’t “appear actual.”
The born-and-raised Brooklynite pulled from her personal experiences using the Q practice to high school and to museum outings together with her dad and mom to dream up the profitable design — a spray-painted R160 subway automobile.
She recalled being “mesmerized” each time the practice pulled previous an enormous graffiti-covered warehouse wall between the Brighton Seashore and Sheepshead Bay stops.
“The metro and murals are so cultural to Brooklyn,” Melezhik, a pupil at Brooklyn Studio Secondary College, stated.
“The inspiration for this design was usually that Brooklyn itself may be very well-known for its metro methods. It’s among the best metro methods within the US,” she added.
“The graffiti half — I really feel prefer it represents the group and the tradition inside Brooklyn,” Melezhik stated. “It’s each an inspiration inside Brooklyn, but additionally it’s one thing that’s well-known and conjures up others outdoors of Brooklyn.”
Her submission was considered one of a whole lot, which included a number of Brooklyn Bridges, water towers, pizzas and different BK-centered iconography — together with some by non-Brooklynites who tried to sneak into the competitors organized by the borough president’s workplace.
However Borough President Antonio Reynoso stated the graffiti-covered automobile was a transparent standout.
“It’s an awesome piece that mixes artwork and creativity within the graffiti with considered one of our defining modes of transportation for New York Metropolis, which is the MTA subway automobile,” he stated. “It’s simply very sensible. Very Brooklyn.”
Melezhik’s handiwork will probably be formally unveiled at Reynoso’s “State of the Borough” tackle Thursday because the first-ever constituent-designed pin.
The custom was born throughout BP Marty Markowitz’s tenure from 2002 to 2013, when he was recognized for handing out 1000’s of gold pins styled after the Brooklyn Dodgers’ traditional script to constituents, together with ones he’d take proper off his personal blazer.
Throughout his time as borough president from 2014-21, former Mayor Eric Adams continued the pattern, however it wasn’t till final 12 months that Reynoso determined to revamp the design, to 1 by his workplace’s Arts Ambassador, Colm Dillane.
Melezhik’s design will function the subsequent iteration and would be the first that isn’t solely the typeface of “Brooklyn.”
{The teenager} had almost refused to submit a design for the competitors, however was inspired by a very good buddy biology trainer, Ms. Del Ponte, she stated.
Melezhik took on the competition head-on, pondering of it as a “problem,” even when she didn’t find yourself profitable. Whereas she loves drawing, the younger artist prefers to work on world-building digital illustrations slightly than tangible designs.
Her practice pin was chosen by Reynoso’s crew with out the beep’s workplace understanding whose submission it was, however the revelation that it got here from the teenager daughter of two Ukrainian immigrants from Kazakhstan made it an ideal Brooklyn story, he stated.
“It couldn’t be a greater Brooklyn story!” Reynoso advised The Submit.
“It’s reflective of who we’re in Brooklyn. Our inventive vitality is operating deep on this borough. We didn’t select the design due to the individual, however it simply occurred to be the proper one who made the design,” he stated.
“Transportation is so central to who we’re as a borough and to have the practice automobile is actual Brooklyn and nothing extra Brooklyn than graffiti on a practice automobile,” Reynoso stated.
The pins themselves will probably be coveted, Reynoso warned — the one strategy to get one’s arms on one is to volunteer locally or to shake arms with the BP himself.
“Nearly all of the pins get to individuals by seeing it on my lapel, and I take it off each time,” he stated.
