RANGELEY – Michele Jaffarian nearly freaked out when she learned that her artwork depicting her snowboard bindings had been selected to represent the 2nd Congressional District at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

“This is really big for me,” she said Monday afternoon in the art room at Rangeley Lakes Regional School. “I haven’t won anything for my art.”

Her 8.5-inch-by-11-inch, colored-pencil abstract will join 440 other pieces of art work selected from other congressional districts and six non-voting areas all over the country, including one by 1st Congressional District winner, Suki Nesvig of the Waynflete School in Portland.

Michele, 18, and her mother, Patti, will travel to Washington, D.C., in June for the ribbon-cutting ceremony that will formally open the art show. Michele has also been invited to a reception at the Blaine House on May 16.

According to a statement issued by Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, all the works will be displayed in the Cannon Tunnel of the Capitol building.

Michele began drawing as a young elementary school pupil, then got serious about it in eighth grade.

“Sonja Johnson (her school art teacher) has been pushing me to where I am now,” Michele said. “Art allows you to express yourself in any way you want, to express what happens in your life. It’s a different way to record history.”

She has been accepted at the New England School of Photography in Boston and the Maine Media Workshop in Rockland.

In addition to colored pencils, which she said she is the best at, Michele also creates art pieces in charcoal, pastels, water color pencils and acrylics.

She loves to snowmobile, snowboard, four-wheel and play the guitar and drums as well as sing. She jams with her friends on weekends, fishes and hikes, works in her mother’s store, Loony Bin Variety and PJ Power Sports, and is a high honors student.

Having a Washington, D.C., artist in her class isn’t a first for Johnson. Another of her students, Victor Schrader, had his collage chosen in 2001. And, she said, one-quarter of the winners in the Scholastic Art Awards competition from last fall were from the Rangeley school.

“I have a lot of good artists here,” Johnson said.

Michele is still trying to process the fact that one of her works will be seen by thousands of people in the nation’s capital.

“It’s kind of big for me. It will look good on my resume,” she said.