Charleston

In a landmark urban renewal effort, city planners, developers, and architects partnered to commission this 120' mural on a concrete DOT wall in downtown Charleston.
Located at King Street and Fishburne, next to Recovery Room.

While in Charleston, I painted this mural in West Ashley with the support of ChArt Outdoor Initiative.

Located on Alycia Alley behone Gene's Haufbrau.

Living Walls: East Atlanta Village

I painted this mural on the side of Tomatillo's in East Atlanta Village.

Bay of Banderas, Mexico

I did a two-week tour of the Bay of Banderas, on the Pacific Coast of Central Mexico, with Festival Anonymous, an international street art organization. I painted murals in towns along the bay, including Bucerias, Sayulita, and Las Animas. These pieces were inspired by the natural landscape there, as well as the mesmerizing art of the Huichol, a group indigenous to the Nayarit region.

Thanks so much to everyone involved in this project, especially Nicole Majewski and K.T. Kirkpatrick, Harold and Sue Sokolove, Megan Kirkpatrick, Jesse Cann, Ian Ferris, and the Sayulita Cultural Center.

Large mural in Bucerias:

Small mural at the Sayulita Cultural Center:

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Miami Art Basel 2013

Pictures from this year's Miami Art Basel trip! All of these are in the Wynwood District, painted over a two-week period in late-November through Early December. Thanks so much to Danielle Brutto, Jon Graham, Josh and Tracy Kohn, Ishmael, the whole Heineken Mural Project crew and artists, Jorge Moreno, Living Walls, Samson Contompasis of Marketplace Gallery, Fountain Art Fair, and everyone else who helped make these possible.

On NW 25th between 3rd and 4th.

On NE 20th between Biscayne and North Miami Ave.

Courtyard mural installation at Fountain Art Fair, collaboration with Pixel Pancho, Never 2501, and Ever.

Courtyard mural installation for Fountain Art Fair, 8'x 8' latex on wood panel.

Exterior collaboration on Fountain Art Fair with Jaz, Elian, Cope2, Pixel Pancho, Pastel, LNY, Never 2501, and Ever.

On the way home, our group stopped in Jacksonville, FL to paint pieces on the outside of Cork Art Collective. Here is my part:

TRI-COLOR: a coloring book by molly rose freeman

I love books, and after seeing a zine show put together in part by Laura Calle, the Director of Programming for Living Walls, I started looking for ways to make one of my own. It began as just a hand-made book of my small drawings (I have a lot of these since I don't sketch--they're basically studies, experiments on fitting pieces together in different ways.) But then I remembered what I used to do in St. Louis at the middle school where I worked as an after school assistant. The program I was working for had very little money for supplies but they asked me to run an art class three times a week, so I started making drawings that I could photocopy in the office for my kids to color. I won't say I won over everyone with these, but there was a little group that would sit at a round table in the cafeteria, surrounded by tons of noise and action, and they would color page after page and tune out everything else. I realized how important that had been for me when I was in school, and how I have built my work around it--the desire to focus intensely on something without self-consciousness. So I'm offering up this book for whoever wants to color and lose themselves in the repetition of something. It's a good way to ground yourself, even in the midst of total chaos.

 

Every copy of TRI-COLOR features 16 pages of drawings and is independently printed and bound by hand with thread. You can buy them here for $10.

 

 

Sample pages:

Atlanta!

In January, I am relocating to Atlanta full-time, and I can't tell you how excited and proud I am to be a part of one of my favorite cities in the world!
Last month I spoke to a Philosophy class at Emory University about public art, and got

 to share the work of some of my favorite artists and talk with them about the possibilities in public spaces. One student really responded and is now spearheading a light projection project on the Emory campus. I am so inspired by this, and by all the people and organizations in the city that are taking the initiative to cultivate the spaces around them. As if I needed another reason to love Atlanta!!

From Catherine Homan's Philosophy of Art class blog:

Ever since Molly Rose Freeman gave that lecture in class, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about public art and how it affects our community. I was completely moved by the entire notion of the genre, its spontaneity, its risk. I loved the work of Armsrock, the artist who employed projections in his work, and I wanted to share those ephemeral “light drawings” with the Emory community. That is where the Light Observations project began. I applied for a grant from Emory’s Center for Creativity & Arts to pursue this project, and I just found out that my project was selected.

Over the course of two nights in mid-January, a series of projections will appear near and on the freshman residence halls chronicling the everyday life of Emory residents. Perhaps scenes of students catching up on some homework will appear- one student just happens to be perched on the ledge of a window, the other on top of the study lounge’s roof. Maybe a squirrel will decide to take a peek on the festivities going on in Turman or Longstreet-Means. I want to integrate some of my quirky line drawings with the geometric angles of Emory’s modern architecture to produce something unique, something humorous, something welcoming for the new semester. With these projections, the warmth that is inside the residence halls will be directly translated onto the residence halls themselves, uniting our community even greater. And through the use of digital networking media, I hope to set up a portal in which many other Emory community members can submit their quotes and drawings for the project. I’ve even had some interest from students in doing multilingual projections as well.

This project is definitely going to be a new working experience for me, both within the physical work and the philosophy that now envelops my perception of the artworld. I’ve realized my work strives to be more powerful than I had initially expected because my work explores the relationship between concealment and unconcealment just as much as any other work of art. So thank you Martin Heidegger.

Festival Anonymous: Bucerias, Mexico

In January I am going to Bucerias, Mexico to paint at Festival Anonymous, a two-day art and music festival in the Bay of Banderas. This will be my first time to Mexico and I can't wait to see what happens.

Today's blog post:

Molly Rose Freeman

Artist of the Day.

Molly Rose Freeman
North Carolina, USA

I’ve been painting murals for almost two years. For me it’s the best way–to be outside, to have all the elements of nature and people and the city around you. Getting to take a flat wall and make it breathe, to electrify something that was invisible–you can’t beat that. I try to pay attention to what’s around me–the sounds, the currents, the light, everything–and then let the wall tell me where it wants to go. And do my best not to get in the way! I use basic geometric shapes so they can become anything, move any way they want. I don’t know what the wall will look like really until the very end. It’s exciting to be surprised, to make something without fully understanding what you’re making. That’s the magic.

He estado pintando murales hace casi dos años. Para mí es la mejor manera – para estar afuera, para tener todos los elementos de la naturaleza y la gente y  la ciudad a su alrededor. Llegar a tener una pared plana y hacerlo respirar, para electrificar algo que era invisible – no se puede superar eso. Trato de prestar atención a lo que me rodea – los sonidos, las corrientes, la luz, todo – y luego dejar que la pared me dice dónde quiere ir. Y hago mi mejor esfuerzo a no estorbar! Yo uso las formas geométricas básicas, para que puedan convertirse en cualquier cosa, mueva cualquier manera que deseen. No sé como la pared se verá realmente hasta el final. Es emocionante ser sorprendido, para hacer algo sin entender completamente lo que estás haciendo. Esa es la magia.

"love triangle"

"love triangle," new limited edition prints (run of fifty) now available on my shop. 

this comes from a series i've been working on inspired by personal relationships--how people become intertwined and adapt to those close to them.

new website + amazing crystal video

business first: my newly redesigned website is up. www.mollyrosefreeman.com.

every couple of weeks i go on internet research binges, and most of the time i'm looking for what's new and good in the world of microscope imagery. today i found this gem which is worth the full 10 minutes if you're in the mood to focus on something other than what you were doing. natural psychadelia in action!!

Living Walls video + photos

A Wall's Story from virginie kippelen on Vimeo.

Above is a video by Virginie Drujon-Kippelen, a photographer that I got to know when she photographed Living Walls for the New York Times.

Below are some of my favorite photos from Living Walls by Dustin Chambers.

For Creative Loafing.

meanstreaks

last month i got a gift of some white meanstreaks, finally putting them to use:

"i dreamt about you years ago and yesterday," marking stick on paper, 22" x 30", 2012

from my sketchbook

a few drawings from a much larger stash:

asheville rites project

my newest project! please help support this if you can, we have been working on this idea for months and months and i am so excited for it to come to life!

new drawing & teasers

"petalcoat," a drawing i started months ago that i just reworked today. unfortunately the scanner doesn't pick up fluorescent ink or you would be blown away by the fluorescent pink that's all over it. but pretty soon you will be able to see it in person, which leads me to my SOLO SHOW.

my show is at eclipse salon and gallery on wall street in asheville, nc. march 18, 7 pm reception: there will be wine/beer and i'm also making special cockatils. me and mama are making food, too, so come hungry.

(about a third of the pieces, framed.)

my friend and fellow artist court mccracken shot a video interview last week in which i talk about art, inspiration, and logging hours in the studio. it's for her website art nurture, which is a resource for people--artists and non-artists alike--to help foster creativity in their daily life. look for that in the upcoming weeks....

i'm doing the album artwork for a band made up of two of my favorite brothers, matt and kevin rumley. their band, her marigold, is releasing its first album, "we learn it to forget it," and they chose this super bright, graphic piece of mine for the cover. they shot some footage for their kickstarter video in the studio today, and they even played some tunes which made me wish they were in here all the time. i'll post video soon!

i also just started working with the asheville mural project, which is an organization that does exactly what the name suggests. they just installed a really nice piece on the corner of eagle and market street downtown in honor of black history month.

and to wrap things up, asheville mural project, along with arts2people, riverlink and asheville ballet, are serving as the structural support for a project that I have had in the works for months and months and months that is finally coming to fruition: a performance installation that combines a temporary mural (by me), a contemporary dance piece choreographed by garth grimball, and an original score composed by michael libramento. beginning april 10, we're installing 50 feet of free standing panels in a gorgeous outdoor space right on the french broad in the river arts district. over the course of a month i'll be painting a big, abstract, pattern-centric mural on site to act as a backdrop to garth's dance piece. michael's score will be played live during the performance.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we filmed our proposal video last week and it's in the editing room this very second, and when it's finished we will post it to kickstarter and get the fundraising in motion.

did i mention the performance is going to be totally FREE and open to the public?

mark your calendars: may 21, riverlink sculpture and performance plaza.

more news soon!!

new drawing & studio pictures

"starthrow"

new drawing

"dino."

strands

illustrations so fresh they're not even eight hours old.