Kelly C. Berwager grew up in a small town in north Alabama where she received an art scholarship to a junior college, but chose to study Business Administration at Birmingham-Southern College. She continued taking art classes throughout college, but didn’t think she could make a living as an artist and teaching was totally out of the question.

Ten years after receiving her degree in business, she started her family and returned to school for a master’s degree in Art Education. Her media of choice at that time was large oil paintings of odd still life objects seen from her two-year-old son’s point of view.

Dr. Berwager received her MA.E. degree in 1996 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and then taught PK-12 visual art classes for 17 years. She received her Ph.D. in 2013 in Educational Research from The University of Alabama with a desire to teach at the collegiate level. She began teaching Visual Arts, Arts Education, & Drawing classes at Troy University in 2013.

Her most recent works are large acrylic figurative paintings and collages created from old dress patterns and paper dolls. She enjoys juxtaposing historical elements with contemporary ones and the pursuit of identity through the genealogy of material objects.