What does it mean to return — to the earth, to ourselves, to what is sacred in the ordinary?
In conjunction with the closing of the Environmental Art Show, please join us for Waymarks Toward Reunion: Making Beauty As a Return to the Earth an Artist Talk with Patrick Beldio, MFA, Ph.D. and Waymarks Fellow Gabriella Palmer, 26′ on April 21 at 5pm in the Charles Kratz Scranton Heritage Room.
This talk brings together a sculptor and a playwright at a shared creative threshold. Patrick Beldio, Artist-in-Residence at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land and Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Scranton, introduces his grant-funded program Waymarks Toward Reunion and reflects on his own creative and spiritual practices, and how these inform and are informed by his scholarship and teaching in the classroom. Gabriella Palmer, Scranton student and Waymarks Fellow, shares her latest original play: a retelling of the Prodigal Son as family drama with magical realism, that also examines the theme of reunion with nature. Beldio and Palmer will discuss what making art asks of both artist and audience, what the word reunion means in a week devoted to the earth, and how they each entered the creative threshold from different doors. The talk concludes with a Q&A.
Patrick Beldio, MFA, PhD, is a scholar and teacher of comparative theology with specializations in Hinduism, Sufism, and Christian spirituality. He teaches in the Theology and Religious Studies Department at the University of Scranton, serves as a Research Fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and is a Core Team member of Philosophy in the Arts : Arts in Philosophy—a cross-cultural research initiative on the role of the heart in artistic research and performance philosophy, funded by the Austrian Science Fund.
His current book, The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Co-Creator of the Integral Yoga (Bloomsbury, 2025), explores the transformative legacy of Mirra Alfassa (1878–1973), a French Jewish woman who became an Indian guru with a global following.
In addition to his academic work, Beldio is a professional sacred sculptor with a studio at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, DC. His artwork is held in private and public collections across the United States, Europe, and India. You can view his work at https://www.reunionstudios.com
Gabriella Palmer, 26′ is a senior triple major in English, Theatre, and Philosophy with a Legal Studies concentration at The University of Scranton. She is originally from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Her first full-length play, “The Justice Plays Its Part”, was developed as part of a fellowship with the University’s Slattery Center for the Humanities and was performed by the University of Scranton Players in spring 2025. She has presented research at the 2024–2025 Lycoming College Humanities Research Conference. Her ten-minute play, “To the Tune of Chaos”, was read at the 2025 Sigma Tau Delta Convention, and her short story, “The Inheritance of Vivienne Dupree” was featured at the 2026 conference.
She also co-wrote “The 1902 Project”, a research-based play about the 1902 Coal Strike, which was read by the University of Scranton Players in 2023. Most recently, her ten-minute play “An Empty Glass and Other Metaphors for Darkness” was published in Esprit, The University of Scranton’s literary magazine. In addition to being the Waymarks Student Fellow, Gabriella has completed fellowships with the Slattery Center for the Humanities and Scranton’s Office of Community-Based Learning, where she helped compile and explain legal resources available to local colleges and organizations in the Scranton area. She will be attending law school in the fall.
This event is free and open to the public, light refreshments will be available. We hope you can join us!
The 2026 Environmental Art Show runs from April 13th to April 22th in the Charles Kratz Scranton Heritage Room and is open to the public during library operational hours.
If you have any questions regarding this event please reach out to Marleen Cloutier via email at marleen.cloutier@scranton.edu