Artist Moll Frothingham - Art Work at Freehold

I’ve always loved windows at night. Windows with lights in them: sometimes filtered through red or green curtains, sometimes blue and flickering from a television screen, sometimes revealing entire scenes enacted within the room and other times showing only the corner of a ceiling.

Walking down a darkened street and seeing those signs of people’s lives has always touched me in a way that is both inspiring and humbling. It is similar to how I feel watching great theater—because in both cases, I am reminded of how much of ourselves we keep hidden from the world, with only glimpses showing.

The best plays, the best acting, reveal the subtext beneath the words and hint at the vast depths of emotion and experience which all of carry around with us but few of us ever share. Instead, we laugh or cry with a character who can embody those feelings and fears and flaws that we guard so closely. And even as we protect our secret selves, there is a unique essence in each of us that shines forth—our own lit window in the night.

This is the beauty and necessity of all of the arts and the charge of artists everywhere: to capture on a visceral level the experience of being alive—in all its terror, tenderness and glory—so that we have a sacred space in which to let down our defenses and reconnect with those deepest parts of ourselves and those around us.


Seattle native Moll Frothingham is a long time Freehold community member having taken a number of playwriting and acting classes at Freehold. Moll's work can be seen hanging at Freehold through December 10th (Freehold, 2222 2nd Avenue, Suite 200). Moll received her BA in Theater from Smith College in Northampton, MA. Her studies in theatrical lighting first exposed her to the evocative power of light and color on the imagination, which she continues to explore in her art. Urban settings and the night are other themes which fascinate her. If you have any questions or comments, or wish to purchase a painting, you can contact Moll by email: moll@creativenonconformity.com or http://www.creativenonconformity.com/


Images above include: Photo of Moll and her art work