Eugenia Mello

This bottle tells a story about connection across distance. It celebrates the shared rhythm of the East Coast, movement, energy, and exchange between places that are distinct but deeply linked. It reflects how culture, people, and emotion travel between cities, creating one continuous, living landscape.

My favorite detail is the batter hitting the ball on the NYC side and the receiver on the northern or Boston side, with the cheering crowd in between. For me, that moment really brings the idea of connection across the whole area to life. Far apart, but still in dialogue.

Movement is central to my work, so I built the entire composition around flowing lines that behave like water, something deeply connected to the East Coast. At the same time, there are interactions between characters from opposing sides of the bottle, which reflects my love of storytelling and relationships. And of course, I found a way to include dancers, which is something I always love to bring into my work.

Something unexpected is that the composition originally began with a New York summer fire hydrant at the center of the artwork, radiating water outward and connecting the two sides. The flowing water lines structured the entire piece. I loved the idea that everything emerged from water, especially since you are interacting with a water bottle. In the end, the hydrant did not stay. It was replaced by a jazz musician, which I actually love even more. In the space between both sides of the bottle, he is completely absorbed in his saxophone, creating a quiet bridge through music.

There is definitely jazz running through this piece. It moves through different moods. A classic celebratory jazz feeling near the lighthouse in the northern part of the coast, and then something softer and more cinematic toward the end. In the final scene, with city lights and stars behind them, two characters ride in a taxi with their hair blowing in the wind, the skyline stretching out after a long day. It feels like a musical journey through place, energy, and nightfall.

I love traditional warm ups like observational drawing and writing, but movement is just as important to me. Running helps me regulate, recharge, and feel powerful. Starting the day doing something I love, something physical, puts me in exactly the right mindset to create.

Many people do not know that I was born in Peru and lived in five or six different countries before I was 18. I changed schools often and moved constantly growing up. That experience gave me a lot of perspective and sharpened my ability to observe how people move, how they relate, how each place has its own rhythm, and how culture shapes those rhythms in different ways.

I wanted the design to feel alive, full of motion and the electricity of a city like New York, alongside the power of the ocean that shapes this region. I also wanted to express a connection between these two places that was not obvious. Baseball became a beautiful bridge, something both Boston and New York share and care deeply about. That shared passion adds another emotional layer to the story.