May 2026 - Molly Freitag

Molly Freitag, a longtime Central Oregon artist and chaplain, paints abstractions that shimmer between landscape and inner life, between sky and cell, and between river current and nerve current. It’s important to Molly that her paintings do not sit still. They open. They suggest. They keep becoming. In her own words, “They’re abstract with an organic quality about them, and can be seen as evocative of galaxies, skies, water environments, a microscopic view or pathways of change through fields of light and movement.”

While Molly has been painting for twenty years now, her life in art has unfolded across decades and disciplines. Her training includes Ventura College, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the Fine Arts Center School at the DeYoung Museum, followed by years of classes, workshops, and parallel creative work in clay, costume design, calligraphy, and watermedia. Her life in service has been equally substantial: chaplaincy training, hospice work, art therapy, bereavement classes, public speaking, spiritual writing, and the practical,
tender labor of helping people live through illness, grief, and change. She has also been active in regional arts communities for years, including exhibitions across Bend, Redmond, and Prineville, work with the Watercolor Society of Oregon, and more recently writing about art therapy in the Dry Canyon Arts Association’s newsletter.

That double vocation—artist and chaplain—matters. It’s the pulse beneath her work. She’s not trying to overpower the viewer with a message; instead, she’s trying to make room for an encounter. “As a painter and chaplain, I believe in nourishing others with an intent to create ‘healing environments’ that treat the mind, body and spirit. Art is experienced emotionally. I’m aiming for feelings that are subtle and life-affirming.”

She hopes those who see her art will feel the hand and heart at play and experience a sense of their own life’s ways of change and movement. “If the paintings continue to move silently within their frames, evoking the rhythms and cycles of life like a series of breaths, there will be the sense of completion.” To explore more of her world, visit Milo-Genesis.com.