Kelly grew up in North Alabama and has obtained multiple degrees including an undergraduate degree in Business Administration at BSC and a Master’s Degree in Art Education from UAB. She taught PK-12 visual art classes for 17 years in Homewood. She then received a PhD in Educational Research at UAB and began teaching visual arts and education classes at Troy University. Kelly currently lives and teaches in Troy with her husband and their two dogs, Sam and Max. 

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After a health scare in 2021, her outlet was to return to her love of painting and found her “center” again. Having always loved luxurious clothing and fabrics, she began painting images of elegant objects in a sexy-retro vibe. She paints large acrylic artwork of confident women in luxurious clothing and heels. Her dress paintings feature women in poses that emit confidence and strength. In her dress paintings, their faces are obscured in order for the viewers to imagine themselves wearing the elegant dress. Her shoe paintings reflect the high-end design quality of the heel and the elegant occasion at hand. She also creates smaller mixed-media pieces of her childhood retro objects, sometimes joined with contemporary objects to represent the pursuit of identity through the genealogy of material objects.