Melissa A. Mitchell always wants her voice to be heard.

As a working creative, a goal of hers was to have her artwork in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport. Ironically, longtime friend J’Aimeka “Jai” Ferrell was employed there; so for a moment, it looked as if that dream would come true. But, as with most things, the right opportunity comes on God’s timing.

“[Jai] told me she was working on something, so I had to wait,” Mitchell says during our call. Unfortunately, Ferrell left the airport before anything came to be, but she promised not to forget how Mitchell had supported her throughout the years. Ferrell’s next job would be CEO of Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, and eventually, she contacted Mitchell about a possible art project. By January, the idea would come to fruition; with Mitchell being able to create a mural with the City of Atlanta as part of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Mitchell, an Atlanta-based artist and founder of Abeille Creations, would transform the 17th Street Bridge into a public artwork known as the Trefoil Trail. More than 10,000 square feet would be painted along a major connection between Midtown and Atlantic Station, one of the areas expected to see increased activity as Atlanta hosts eight World Cup matches. “So we thought we were going to get a wall somewhere downtown, just smiley faces, flowers,” Mitchell recalls. “And [Jai] says, ‘Mel, this might be the biggest mural for FIFA that we’ve ever done.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, how am I doing this?’ She said, ‘I don’t know, but you better act like you know how.’”

Mitchell had already participated in exhibitions with the City of Atlanta, and her work was familiar to Camille Love, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs. Mitchell arrived prepared with sketches and used a new Adobe mock-up generator to develop a proposal. “The city approved it on a Tuesday,” Mitchell says. “By Friday, I was picking up paint.”

Being a self-taught artist whose work has expanded from original paintings into fashion and large public installations, Mitchell has created more than 500 original works and over 40 murals worldwide. She’s also collaborated with brands such as Microsoft, Ford, COACH, Amazon, SPANX, Foot Locker, and Hennessy, but the Trefoil Trail required Mitchell to produce at a scale she had never attempted before. She had about 30 to 40 days to complete the project, but Atlanta’s unpredictable spring weather interrupted things, and other unforeseen issues arose (“Somebody became obsessed with my art and started showing up every day,” she tells me. “I had to get the police involved.”), Mitchell had to determine how to complete the mural without compromising the work itself.

“This cannot not be successful,” she says of her mindset while creating the mural. “That’s not even on the table. So whatever it takes for this success to happen, this needs to happen.”

Mitchell hired two additional crews and spent money beyond the original budget. Help also arrived through an unexpected encounter at Home Depot. Covered in paint while buying supplies, Mitchell met an individual who told her he had a crew experienced with large buildings. Naturally, she asked if his team could paint a mural, and he followed by asking whether the design had been put onto the wall. “No, but I can have it drawn out by tomorrow,” Mitchell responded.

“When you actually verbalize what you need help with, God will show up,” Mitchell continues. “You have to be honest though, because I think people are always like, ‘Oh, I got it. I got it. I’m good. I’m good.’ And then you ‘I’m good, I’m good’ yourself into a hospital or it becomes a failure.”

Atlanta will welcome visitors from around the world during the tournament, and Mitchell understood the mural would introduce many of them to the city before they learned anything about the artist who painted it. She wanted the work to also reflect the Black culture of the city—a marching band participated in the celebration, Girl Scouts carried a banner alongside band members, city officials attended the event, and Mayor Andre Dickens eventually visited the mural.

“It wasn’t my mural, it was our mural,” Mitchell says. “And I was very adamant about it being our thing.” Community participation became one of the project’s most important elements. More than 200 Girl Scouts helped with the project, according to Mitchell, and participants earned a custom Trefoil Trail Mural Project badge. For Mitchell, working with the scouts carried personal significance. She was once a scout herself and often thinks about how her experiences as a child influence the way she interacts with young people today. “I always say I get to be the person that I needed when I was little,” she says.

Mitchell also saw an opportunity to introduce the girls to careers in the arts. Her own path had not followed formal training or a traditional entry into the industry, yet she had built a full-time career through her artwork. She wanted the scouts to see an artist working professionally on a major civic commission.

“You can be an artist—full stop,” Mitchell says. “No other hyphen. You don’t have to be the mom you want to be yet. You don’t have to be the wife you want to be yet, the business lady. You can be an artist, and that could be a legacy in itself.”

Mitchell finished the mural on April 11, shortly after 11pm; something that remains significant because of what those digits mean to her. (“11 is my favorite number,” she told me earlier in our conversation. “The 11-year-old Melissa would be bursting with tears right now.”) Finishing also allowed her to see exactly what the project demanded of her. “I am better because of this mural,” she says. As a full-time artist of five years now, Mitchell speaks openly about faith as a major force in her life, but she also credits persistence and a willingness to admit when she needs help. “Every challenge is a classroom,” she says. “This was a classroom. It was a TED Talk on trusting God, but also knowing how to ask questions.”

The Florida A&M University graduate’s ability to promote herself has been another important part of her career. Her father, who died 16 years ago, encouraged her to think of herself as a “walking billboard.” He wore clothing he designed and taught his daughter to understand every encounter as an opportunity to introduce someone to her work, a lesson she carried into Abeille Creations. Her father’s passing also changed the urgency with which she approaches her career.

“His biggest advice is me to leave this place on empty,” Mitchell says. “When you get put in that ground or that wall or cream or whatever, if you’re not leaving on E, then you have wasted so much good stuff.”

World Cup visitors will pass Mitchell’s work as Atlanta becomes one of 16 North American host cities for the tournament. “I knew I was prepared and I knew I was chosen,” Mitchell says. “You asked God for this, so this is where we’re at.” For an artist who once asked her friend to help get her work inside the Atlanta airport, Trefoil Trail has placed Mitchell’s art along one of the city’s most visible locations. Now, countless visitors from around the world have seen it, and Mitchell plans to keep her ambition going.

“I’m so not afraid of failure that I’ll just do things anyway,” she says. “I don’t want you to ever catch me not being as dope as you’ve seen me before.”