Meet Rhonda by Molly Kirschenbaum, aka Moollz

by Natalie Durkin

Rhonda, with headress and flames: I made this piece a while ago, over the course of…a year, I think? I had taken a figure drawing workshop in which I completed the original sketch of the model pictured. She had the most interesting expressions when posing, but I wasn’t very good at faces. I later came up with the idea of giving her a kind of “aura”, capturing her personality within a larger piece. The body became representative of her physical self, while her environment became an exploration of the energy she exuded while posing.

Acrylic, charcoal, printed ink, collaged paper/newsprint, canvas.

Molly is down to earth; Moollz lives somewhere deep in outer space.

Over a year later, I get to meet Molly again, this time on purpose to interview her at Kaldi Coffee in Atwater Village. Adorned with green eye shadow, buns in her hair, witchy jewelry, and Doc Marten sliders, she gives me a warm hug.

 

Moollz orders a decaf peppermint tea. She doesn’t vibe with caffeine, despite managing the rigors of being a student at Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University. “I’m studying music business, music theory, composition, production, and engineering,” she rattles off as if she’s studying basic arithmetic. She hopes to delve further into songwriting, film scoring, and multi media branding as well as honing her craft as a songwriter and composer. (from Natalie Durkin’s “Intergalactic and Intuitive Moollz“)

TribeLA Magazine Acrostic Interview.1

Natalie: Give yourself and your work a tagline.
Molly: Perhaps something like: “Portraits of the Woman as the Inner Goddess”. (It’s so strange and wonderful to be talking about my visual art in such a focused manner, I always treat my painting as a hobby/way to acquire cover art without having to pay!)

Natalie: Rest: How do you spend your time off?
Molly: As a college student, musical artist, and writer, a lot of my “time off” actually goes toward painting and drawing! Visual art usually helps me find some “zen” and gets me out of my head. I also love walking/hiking, movies, reading, and cooking for the same reasons – I need my time off to be dedicated to me getting out of my head and focusing on something that takes me to a different world or just makes me happy!

Continued tomorrow…

Photo by Lisa Durkin

Natalie Durkin is a content contributor and social media assistant at TribeLA. She is a student at Bard College in New York’s idyllic Hudson Valley and returns intermittently to L.A. to see her parents and black Labrador Retriever, Buoy. Don’t ask her what she is majoring in; she doesn’t know yet, but she plans on pursuing a career in drama therapy. Once, she was a debutante. Sometimes, she is an actress, waterskier, and snow skier. She is always a Sex and the City fan, animal lover, and proud Angeleno. Nat’s website is: https://nataliedurkinwriting.wixsite.com/nataliedurkin