Biography

Judy Maloney began her teaching career at Juniata College in 1992 as a sabbatical replacement for Art Historian Dr. Karen Rosell. In the fall of 1999, she returned to the college as adjunct instructor, and now holds a multi-disciplinary position teaching in the Art History, Museum Studies, and Philosophy programs, and serving as Director of the Juniata College Museum of Art. She also, for several years, taught composition in the College Writing Seminar.

After earning an undergraduate degree in English, the Writing Option, from Pennsylvania State University, Maloney worked as insurance benefits approver, secretary, and newspaper reporter on the way to earning her first master's degree in Fiction Writing from Penn State. Her master's thesis was a collection of short stories, White Sands.

A year spent living in Bulgaria and travel elsewhere in Europe created a great appetite to know more about art; consequently, she acquired a second master's degree, this one in Art History, at Tulane University in New Orleans. There she focused her research in Modern Art and Italian Renaissance Art, and wrote her thesis on "Sensation and Appearance: An Interpretation of Francis Bacon's Realism".

Between that degree and coming to Juniata, Maloney taught as an adjunct instructor at Penn State and worked as a counselor for Centre House, a homeless shelter in State College. She considers what she learned there from the people she worked with an essential education about human needs, which she tries to bring to her teaching of art and writing.

As Curator of the Juniata College Museum of Art from 2005 to 2008, then Director since 2008, Maloney has curated many exhibitions for the JCMA including "Jacob Lawrence: Three Series of Prints," "Faces of Time: Drawings and Prints by Old and Modern Masters," "Mohammed Al Shammarey : Rain Song"; has written catalogues for "Faces of Time" and for the exhibition, "Evan Summer: Unknown Landscapes"; and has published exhibition-related essays in the Juniata online journal, Voices, including "Painted Stories: The Work of Jacob Lawrence."

As JCMA Director Maloney's responsibilities and accomplishments include building and diversifying the Permanent Collection, focusing on contemporary prints and work by artists of color; overseeing the Friends of the Museum program; serving as registrar for the Collection; creating a "campus art loan program" for the Juniata community; and securing grants for ensuring care of the Collection and facilities.

Maloney has published short stories, essays, and articles including "The Farmer as Artist," in Research/ Penn State, December 1987; "White Sands" in The Long Story, 1988; "The Fat Girl Story," in Sojourner, January 1992; "Improvising Nature: A Profile of American Landscape Painter Richard Mayhew," in Research/Penn State, March 1992; "A Perfect Right to Love," in The Sun, November 1993; "A Richer Experience of Place," in Research/Penn State, June 1995; "The Gentle Society," in the Palo Alto Review, Spring 1997. She is an active member of the American Alliance of Museums, the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, and the College Art Association.

Maloney lives in State College with her husband, S. Leonard Rubinstein, and their daughter, Bessie.