The Art Mission
The programs in Art are designed to help students attain full development as creative persons through the integration of art studies with the total concept of a liberal arts education. It is through the creative, aesthetic dimension of human intelligence that greatness in culture is born. The human person communicates this dimension through the process of art. The artist, in his/her quest for a common abstraction or “truth” in nature and in humanity, functions to challenge and set standards of excellence in all aspects of human endeavor.
Through critical awareness and understanding of the physical world and its relationship to social, ethical, and economic conditions, the art student begins this quest. Artistic (creative) potential lies, often dormant, within every person from any cultural background or educational exposure. Once released, this powerful communication form reveals each individual’s cohesive relationship to the world in all its diversity and enables the artist as a more “fully developed” person to foster quality in and respect for, life.
By virtue of its diversity art applauds differences as well as similarities. It is also through this dimension that spiritual insights, social awareness, and dedication to personal, responsible communication develop and are expressed. As an active participant in the mission and philosophy of Marywood University, the goals of the Department of Art include preparation of individuals experienced in diverse creative processes through the various art media.
Students are involved intensely in self-discovery, self-evaluation, artistic research (affective and cognitive), and professional presentation of products. As a result, the art student develops a sense of responsibility, empathy and professionalism, which then should be reflected, upon graduation, by commitment and involvement as a professional in the larger community. It is this growing sense of responsibility for quality communication, balanced with creativity that will enrich future generations.
Faculty
Our faculty members, are committed, caring, and creative working professionals. In addition to teaching and advising students at Marywood, they continue to develop their own aesthetic visions through personal and commercial projects. Many of our faculty members have shown their work in national and international exhibitions. They've also written books, scholarly papers for journals, and articles for a variety of magazines and news outlets. In addition, many have been featured in numerous publications, including Artists Magazine, Art in America, Fiber Arts, Ceramic Monthly, Metalsmith, American Craft, Print, NET Magazine, Communication Arts, and Step by Step.
Stephen Garrison
Associate Professor | Co-Director of the School of Visual & Performing Arts
Facilities & Technology
Every art student at Marywood has access to superb facilities, from computer labs and darkrooms to drawing, painting, printmaking, metal, wood, and sculpture studios and weaving looms. Facilities are available to art students 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Insalaco Center for Studio Art features drawing and painting studios showcasing naturally-lit rooms with beautiful views of the campus along with studios and equipment for woodworking, fiber arts, jewelry-making, ceramics, sculpture, photography, printmaking, graphic design, illustration, and art therapy, and private and semi-private studios for upper level BFA, MA and MFA students. The building also houses three of the university’s four galleries, the Kresge Gallery, the Mahady Gallery, and the Suraci Gallery.
The Shields Center for Visual Arts contains The Maslow Collection and Study Gallery for Contemporary Art featuring more than 500 works by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Chuck Close.
Insalaco Center for Studio Arts
The Michael and Dolores Insalaco Center for Studio Arts is home to the Art Department. The Insalaco Center also houses the Kresge, Mahady and Suraci Galleries and features drawing and painting studios showcasing naturally-lit rooms with beautiful views of the campus. There are studios and equipment for woodworking, jewelry-making, ceramics, sculpture, photography, printmaking, graphic design, illustration, and art therapy, and private and semi-private workspaces for upper-level BFA, MA, and MFA students. Private and semi-private work spaces are available to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students. Art students can access the building 24 hours a day.
Built and dedicated in 2001, the facility was made possible through the generous support of Michael Insalaco, Trustee Emeritus and former Board Chair, and his wife, Dolores.
Kresge Gallery
Located in the lobby of the Insalaco Center for Studio Arts, the Kresge Gallery is a versatile exhibition, critique, and lecture space. An alternative venue to the formal art galleries, the Kresge Gallery provides a working and experimental exhibition site for art students and faculty to showcase a variety of work throughout each semester.
Mahady Art Gallery
The Robert J. and Elizabeth FitzMartin Mahady Gallery, known more frequently as the Mahady Gallery, is located on the first floor of the Insalaco Center for Studio Arts, providing an open and elegant setting for the display of contemporary artwork. Throughout the year, the gallery offers a variety of group and solo shows by visiting artists, juried regional competitions, faculty exhibits, student shows, and curated national exhibitions. Every art major has an exhibit in the Mahady Gallery before graduation.
Formerly known as the Contemporary Gallery, the venue underwent renovations in 2001. Elizabeth Mahady, a generous benefactor, underwrote the remodeling of the space, which was renamed to honor her and her late husband. In 2025, the gallery was relocated to the lobby of the Insalaco Center for Studio Arts. The refurbished Mahady Gallery has continued to showcase works of talented students, faculty, and visiting artists, providing a source of artistic enrichment for all the people of the region.
Maslow Study Gallery
The Maslow Study Gallery is a learning laboratory, providing fieldwork experiences, internships, and opportunities in curatorial and exhibition studies to Marywood students. Works in The Maslow Collection are available for professional research and study, and many are loaned to regional and national exhibitions.
The Maslow Collection is the largest and most comprehensive collection of Contemporary art in Northeastern Pennsylvania, with over 700 works by more than 150 artists. Collected by Marilyn and Richard Maslow and originally housed at InterMetro Industries, it is now on long-term loan to Marywood University.
The largest part of the Collection is devoted to paintings by newly established or emerging artists working or exhibiting in New York during the late 1970s through the early 1990s, such as David Reed, Terry Winters, Nicholas Africano, Robert Cumming, James Biederman, Jack Goldstein, Melissa Meyer, Gary Lang, Anthony Sorce, Edward Henderson, and Katherine Porter, among many others.
The Collection also includes major prints and works on paper by Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Robert Longo, Chuck Close, Sherrie Levine, Edward Ruscha, Jane Hammond, Peter Halley, Sol LeWitt, and Andy Warhol, among others; and important photographs by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Barbara Kasten, Lee Friedlander, Sandy Skoglund, and Mark Cohen.
The Maslow Collection has loaned works to major exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC; The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens, NY; and the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA; among others.
The Collection is, at its core, a learning laboratory that provides exhibitions, dialogue, fieldwork experience, internships, and other opportunities in curatorial studies. Access begins with all Marywood Art Department students, who interact directly with the Collection as an enhancement of their course content (exhibitions are frequently co-curated by faculty members), and extends to Arts Administration students in a more in-depth way, as well as the larger community as a major resource through loans and events.
Suraci Art Gallery
The Suraci Gallery, located on the first floor of the Insalaco Center for Shields Arts, houses a rotating selection of Marywood's permanent collection of fine and decorative art. Exhibitions in the Suraci Gallery also showcase regional and national artists; support art faculty work and scholarship; provide degree research and documentation opportunities for current and alumni art students; and foster community outreach projects and interests.
The gallery consists of three collections. The gallery's Asian Collection consists of ceramics, furniture, netsukes, inro, ivories, and prints. Bronze and marble sculpture, paintings, ceramics, glass, and French ivories comprise the 19th Century Collection. Religious icons, furniture, and 20th century works round out the Suraci Collection.
Studio Arts Classrooms
The Insalaco Center for Studio Arts features drawing and painting studios showcasing naturally lit rooms with beautiful views of the campus. There are studios and equipment for woodworking, jewelry-making, ceramics, sculpture, photography, printmaking, multipurpose classrooms for graphic design and illustration, and private and semi-private studios for upper level BFA, MA, and MFA students.
The Clay Studio consists of a large common workroom with electric- and kick- wheels, extruders, slab roller, and worktables. Adjoining the workroom is a kiln and glazing room with four electric kilns and two gas kilns. Ceramics majors and minors also have access to personal workspaces that connect to the main workroom and kiln room.
Students in illustration, drawing, painting, and foundations have access to two adjacent studios, each about 800 square feet of uninterrupted space with 10 ft. ceilings. One studio has floor-to-ceiling windows extending 80 ft. along two walls. The other has floor-to-ceiling windows extending 40 ft. along one wall. Both studios are fully equipped with easels and taborets, as well as track lighting, student lockers, storage racks, and ventilation systems.
In addition, students have use of multipurpose classrooms equipped with negative, slide and flatbed scanners, large-format color inkjet printers, color plotters, and digital access to Adobe Creative Cloud software.
The large and airy third floor art studio offers dedicated space for novice through advanced painting students. The room has movable partitions for configuring semiprivate work areas according to class size. Six private art studios 12x15 overlook a stand of mature trees and provide plenty of natural light for each student pursuing a undergraduate degrees in studio art painting.
Graphic design, printmaking, and photography students have access to a group black and white darkrooms, a private darkroom for making large projection prints, and an alternative processes room devoted to working with historic printmaking methods such as palladium, cyanotype and gum bichromate. The department has seven 4x5 view cameras which are available for student use, along with a variety of 35mm and 2-1⁄4 cameras. The spacious lighting studio is equipped with versatile strobe systems, backdrops, and a prop zone. Resources include an adjacent multipurpose classroom equipped with negative, slide, and flatbed scanners, large-format color inkjet printers, color plotters and digital access to Adobe Creative Cloud software.
The second floor printmaking studio provides facilities for working in all the major processes. Currently there are there intaglio/relief presses, a litho press with stones and grinding sink, a letterpress proof press and assorted type, camera room, screen stretching unit and assorted frames, screen washout unit, NU ARC exposure units, and various paper filing and materials cabinets. Adjoining the main studio is a separate letterpress studio and a fully equipped papermaking facility including a Hollander paper beater.
The first floor 3D/sculpture area consists of mold-making facilities for casting metal, resins, plaster, and glass. Fabrication equipment allows students to cut, forge, weld, and cold-finish metal. The hot shop is outfitted with kilns for glass cutting. slumping, and fusing in addition to the foundry for bronze and aluminum. The jewelry studio bays provide opportunities for students to work with "light" metals. The wood studio, shared with Architecture, is designed and equipped for all aspects of woodwork as applied to furniture making and sculpture, including carving, lamination, turning, and finishing.
Clubs
The Art Department has several clubs and organizations dedicated to the arts. Overall, Marywood’s Office of Student Engagement offers over 60 extra-curricular registered clubs and organizations.
CMYKlub
Marywood University Student Art Therapy Association
Shutterbugs Photography Club
Kappa Pi, Zeta Omicron Chapter
Student Resources
Foundations Year
Your first year as an art student at Marywood University is an important step in your development as an artist. To help make your foundation year a success, we offer a number of resources to guide you.
Local Art Supplies
Michael's
1150 Commerce Blvd
Dickson City, PA 18519
570-383-7930
Hobby Lobby
3908 Commerce Blvd
Dickson City, PA 18519
570-383-0294
Jo-Ann Stores
429 Scranton Carbondale Hwy
Scranton, PA 18508
570-344-5377
Online Art Supplies
View Student WorkEducation Guides & Resources
Undergraduate Medals
Medals for Excellence in Art
The Art Department takes great pride in each of the students that pass through our programs. While we recognize that each of our students achieve so much in their short time at Marywood, we feel it is our duty to recognize those who excel far beyond what is required. To that end, we are proud to present the following Medals for Excellence in Art to students who have shown the very highest dedication to their fields upon graduating:
Saint Luke's Medal for Excellence in Art
Selected by Marywood faculty based primary on QPA
Overall level of quality of art work produced and professional presentation is considered for students who fall within 0.05 of each others QPA.
Anna & James Foley Medal for Excellence in Art Education
Awarded to a graduating student who has demonstrated academic excellence by maintaining a minimum QPA of 3.0 as a major in the field of Art Education. Said student must also have demonstrated artistic skills worthy of exhibit at the University. The Medal is established by Sister Ave Maria Foley in honor of her mother, father and brother.
Only those students exhibiting in the current year are eligible.
Selected by Marywood faculty based primary on QPA
Overall level of quality of art work produced and professional presentation is considered for students who fall within 0.05 of each others QPA.
Kappa Pi International Art Honor Fraternity (Zeta Omicrom Chapter)
Must be a chapter member in good standing to receive cords for graduation.
Graduate Medals
Ella T. Ruane Medal for Excellence in Art
QPA Grade Point Average
Written statement on Career Goal
Overall level of quality of art work produced and professional presentation of exhibit
For Studio Art (MFA) students only
Students must apply for the Ruane Medal during the Spring semester in the academic year in which they graduate.
Contact the Art Department
Location: Insalaco Center for Studio Arts
Hours: 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Phone: 570-348-6278
Email: art@marywood.edu
Blog: wherecreativityworks.com
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