About Us

Cultivating creativity since 2004, Philly Art Center has emerged as a leader in arts education throughout the greater Philadelphia region. With an exceptional teaching team, program team and administrative team, we’ve redefined excellence in creative enrichment programming.

Our Approach + Philosophy

Our goal is to develop dynamic, creative thinkers while fostering joy for the arts and self-expression. Our philosophy is simple; we believe in process over product and what occurs during the act of art-making is paramount. We balance an approach that invites students to discover and problem solve while being challenged by age-appropriate curricula that are grounded in educational best practices. We are passionate about the essential role art plays in people’s lives and strive to provide relevant, joyful, research-based and community-building programs that meet the needs of our students and families!

Our Values

We recognize children as whole humans with developing bodies and minds. To honor this, we create a safe and inclusive space. We strive to create a community that is built on foundations of trust, equality and respect for all families and students. Central to our practice is the appreciation and varied perspectives of the cultures we study. We are dedicated to ongoing growth in our students, the communities we create, the teams we foster and the curricula we teach.

Our Story

Philly Art Center, Art Mark LLC, is comprised of four locations, Fairmount (founded in 2004), Queen Village (2011), Cherry Hill (2015) and Mount Airy (2022). Our story began in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia, with the flagship location, where we fostered authentic art class experiences for kids and adults in a small studio setting. We developed our award-winning early childhood art program based on process learning and expanded to adult class offerings. Over time, we broadened our programming to support families with summer camps, vacation camps and after school and expanded to Queen Village. In our second decade, we brought our outstanding programming to Cherry Hill and Mount Airy. We also upgraded our Fairmount and Cherry Hill studios to accommodate our growing communities. As we grew, we knew our commitment to a stellar teaching team was critical. We are proud to provide careers in art education to Philadelphia artists in a positive and supportive environment. What’s next? We will celebrate our 20th anniversary in spring of 2024, with a grandiose celebration to give back and thank our communities for their support throughout this incredible journey!