Caren & Cathy Shelly- Daughter & Mother

Two Maryland Institute Artists met, wed and became art educators. One parent became an elementary school art teacher, the other a graphic designer/college art professor. They created three children of love, and as life grows in the spiral dance, two of the rays shined outward and journeyed on from the family.

As a high school student at Carver Center for Arts and Technology, Caren moved in with her father at the age of 14. At a very early age she developed a curiosity and love of nature, creation, balance and form, the beauty in life, death and the after life.

Caren’s artwork is always personal, drawing from life experiences and formed from materials created from and gathered from the earth.

After graduating from Carver, she attended the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she discovered the ceramics department. Here she found the time and the openness to explore her visions, capture her memories, create from her experiences, grow and reach out through her art.

Caren has now come full circle with her life. As an art teacher at the Friendship School, she can now share her thoughts and experiences while inspiring creativity in the minds of her students. She has turned her classroom into a safe land where world culture in art and forms from nature hold the same weight as the normal based art curriculum. In the evenings and after school Caren creates her visions in clay, wood, and beads. Her many students and animal friends fill her with love daily, which adds to her pleasure in life. Her dreams and visions become tangible.