Coming from a family of artists, Innovation and Design teacher Catherine Kelly has always loved creating art. However, her father, who was an engineer, wanted to make sure Kelly was just as good on her technical side. Both influences motivated her to pursue a career in the digital arts at the California University of Pennsylvania. When she finally graduated with a bachelor degree in art and design, Kelly had to decide what to do to further her career.
“I thought marketing went really, really nicely with art, especially in the digital format,” Kelly said. “So I went to get my marketing MBA. And I got a phone call from them to tell me that I had taken enough hospitality courses so that if I took one more, I’d get a double MBA. Now I have two MBAs, one in hospitality and one in marketing.”
Right after she got her MBAs, Kelly got a phone call and discovered that she was being recruited by a local college to become a teacher there.
“I never thought about being a teacher,” Kelly said. “Turns out they wanted to start a social media marketing program for their graphic design program. They had me come in and write the entire curriculum for the social media marketing program, and I fell in love with teaching.”
After that experience, she decided to continue her passion when she moved out West. She found out that she really liked teaching middle school and early highschool. So when she moved to Florida, Kelly continued to teach at middle schools, including Windermere Prep, where she created and taught a new class called IV Certified Multimedia and Digital Arts. From her past years of teaching, Kelly has learned that there is one essential process that is needed in order to properly make a bond with her students.
“I have a lot of experience with different kids from different backgrounds, from different areas,” Kelly said. “My stories [and] my experiences can help me to connect to them and then they trust me a little bit more.”
Kelly also does get a sense of reward whenever she teaches her students.
“My favorite part is that ‘“aha’” moment, where you realize that the student understood what you tried to teach them,” Kelly said. “It’s just a moment in their face where they go, ‘Oh my. God, I get it now.’”
Outside of being a passionate teacher, Kelly is also an award-winning mural and visual artist.
“I did a few shows in college where I won, but most recently I was part of an exhibit for a mural competition in Sanford where we were actually in the Guinness Book of World Records.” Kelly said.
When competing at Stanford, Kelly broke the world record for the largest mural art of wings. Now, as Kelly enters Trinity, she has a few goals that she wants to accomplish while teaching here.
“I would like nothing more than to see this program take off, to see this kind of setup that we’re doing with our sprints and the design, and to see the program take off into other areas of the school,” Kelly said.
Kelly strongly believes that kids in her class should be loud and should be able to debate and discuss different ideas about the class subject. One of her primary goals is getting students to be more talkative and participative while they take the Innovation and Design class. Throughout her journey, Kelly has always followed one piece of advice that she also gives to other students trying to pursue an art career.
“Never stop,” Kelly said. “There is always better. There is always more. There is never perfect.”