a spirit of play

As the founding artist, primary designer and researcher of Marigold Games, Janine Fron developed two unique series of bespoke, cooperative green games to encourage dynamic social engagement between players while enriching literacy through storytelling with theatrical performance, poetry and fiction within the gameplay. These are heart-healthy games, that were designed with the players in mind, and the inspiring experiences they can create together - this is the heart of the play spirit. How we play with one another is fundamental to having healthy relationships and nurturing life experiences - all for all, rather than all for one. We learn this through our play.

Fron is a contributor of ‘Janeite Games and Game Culture’ in the Jane Austen Special Issue, Texas Studies in Literature and Language (2019).  In 2017, she presented Quills! A Unique Cooperative Game Series of Feathering Transformations at the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) AGM and at the JASNA-GCR's Fall Program: A Taste of the Jane Austen Society.  Fron demonstrated her games and presented research papers that trace the origins of green play as envisioned by Jane Addams and her Prairie School Era contemporaries at the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) in 2011 and 2015.  

In 2005, Fron co-founded and contributed to the Ludica game art collective in Los Angeles with an inclusive message of “Play Belongs to Everyone” to encourage women and girls to be part of the creative process of making games and to support alternative forms of inclusive play.  She co-presented dynamic DIY game art workshops and research papers with the Ludica group at DAC, DiGRA, SIGGRAPH, and ISEA. She is an alumni of Loyola University Chicago and pursued independent studies at the University of Tampere in Finland where she focused on International Communication and Women’s Studies, while researching topical issues related to women, girls and games.

Fron additonally researched alternative methods of education as they relate to cultural enrichment and play.  She received her teaching certificate in Waldorf Early Childhood Education from the Chicago Waldorf School’s Arcturus Program, which she discovered through her personal practice and exploration of Eurythmy. She has instructed unique game design courses/lessons, game workshops, playful activities, and guest lectured at Columbia College Chicago, Northwestern University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Wisconsin-Madison, St. Mary’s College, Cranbrook Schools, North Shore School District 112, LaGrange District 102, Alcott Elementary School, Urban Prairie Waldorf School, City Garden Waldorf School, Chicago Waldorf School, Chicago Public Schools, and the Chicago Park District. 

Fron’s cooperative games have been played at special events that celebrate Earth Day, Poetry Month, and Jens Jensen’s 150th birthday; and have been used by K-12 and college educators, and Homeschool Co-Ops. She is a JASNA-GCR member and a past volunteer for the Chicago Park District. She is also a past volunteer beekeeper for the Heller Nature Center Apiary in Highland Park. She co-organized the grassroots symposium Urbs in Horto: Jens Jensen Reconsidered, cosponsored by the Chicago Park District, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, University of Illinois–Chicago, and the Chicago Architecture Foundation, in celebration of Chicago’s visionary Prairie School ideals and nature conservancy initiatives. She deeply believes in the transformative nature of the arts to awaken and reveal the human spirit.

Janine Fron is also a new media artist, author and educator. Fron is a member of the Chicago-based (art)n collective, whose works have been exhibited internationally and are in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, International Center of Photography, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art–The University of Oklahoma. Commissioned installations include the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, Smithsonian Institution, Cranbrook Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, State of Illinois Art-in-Architecture Program, and the City of Chicago Public Art Program. Key motifs of (art)n's works fuse invisible science with art in relation to visual history, tolerance and remembrance to inspire future generations to engage in the world imaginatively, creatively and collaboratively, with compassion.

Fron was a recent Visiting Scholar of Culture and Society at the University of Illinois during 2016-2021 to celebrate the Herstory of trailblazing women in new media arts. She creatively contributed to past experimental new media initiatives and research at Columbia College Chicago and the University of Southern California that explored interactivity, collaboration and social engagement within the humanities. Her co-authored publications that emphasize collaboration as a co-creative process include the University of Illinois Press, The MIT Press, Feminist Media Studies, Games and Culture, and the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center. Fron’s exploration of women and games were also highlighted in her various Herstory presentations, noting the historic intersections of precursory women artists and writers, coinciding with centennial milestones–into our present day.

“I am gratefully blessed to have collaborated on an array of artistic works and inspiring cultural enrichment projects that have been cathartic, healing and affirming for all of those involved.” –JF