Art helped a Clark County high school grad survive seeing mom’s murder

Painting in reds, oranges and yellows reminds Jade Malewicz of watching sunsets with her mother, whose middle name was “Sunshine.”

Malewicz, 18, graduates Monday from Northwest Career and Technical Academy with about 400 other seniors. After passing exams and finishing classes, she’ll be handed her diploma.

But before she crosses the podium, she’ll already have survived a different type of trial.

When she was 16, she saw her mother’s murder. Despite the loss, she’s been determined to graduate from high school, something she’s been ready for since she was 5, to make her family proud.

Malewicz is a part of her school’s engineering and design program, in which one in five students are girls. It’s allowed her to forge a career path with her passion — art.

“My family didn’t want me to be like a starving artist, so I think engineering and architecture is just another form of art where I can actually make a career out of it,” she said. “And I do enjoy it.”

Malewicz said she finds beauty in the way architects blend designs into buildings, “the art that everybody appreciates,” as she puts it.

For her senior project, she worked with classmates to 3-D print a skateboard lock. The square piece of plastic covers one of the wheels, immobilizing the skateboard. She said it took them three days to design and create.

At school, classes where she creates 3-D layouts of buildings on computers are her favorite; the skill comes easily to her, she said.

Aileen Cornman, a counselor at the school, said she’s seen Malewicz becoming a role model for other students.

“She has goals and she wants to achieve them,” she said. “I know she’s kept her grades up no matter what she’s gone through.”

After losing her mother, Malewicz had to deal with the stress of court trials, school and family troubles. She and her younger brother moved in with her grandparents.

To cope with lawyers and the trial, she found haven in acrylic painting. She favors blues and greens, for the way the colors fade into each other.

Recently, she’s spent every day working at a tuxedo-fitting shop after school. She’s recently moved into her own apartment, a step toward greater independence.

“I wake up at 5, I go to school, I leave, I go to work; and then I get home. That’s it for now, but once school’s out I’ll have a lot more time to do what I want and set up my apartment,” Malewicz said.

At school, she’s helped her friends balance studies, work and their outside life, something she’s gotten used to herself.

“One of my friends, he’s not doing very well, but I help him through it and stuff,” she said. “I don’t want to see him fail.”

She plans to study engineering at UNLV so she can create art that everybody appreciates.

Contact Melissa Gomez at mgomez@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0278. Follow her on Twitter @melissagomez004