Collage artist Caroline McElroy credits her mother for her creative instincts and believes she first learned about form and function at her mother's knee, where she encouraged her to grow her talent. McElroy's creative development highlights include: summering in Laguna Beach, California, for several years with the artistic community that worked on the Living Art show and who were the founders of the original Sawdust Festival; spent time in the creative studio of LA Freak Scene guru and sculptor Vito Paulekas, where he took her under his wing and taught her about perspective, form, and function; spent a year in the workshop of famed Junk Sculptor Duffy of California, where he taught her to weld using his philosophy of presentation, form, and function. McElroy also studied art during junior high school through college in courses such as ceramics and watercolor and a variety of art course work. The majority of her art classes would assign a college in the early stages of a class, which she threw herself into and embraced those assignments that challenged her on a creative level that no other assignments could. McElroy grew her penchant for collaging and began to collage furniture, lamps, and walls and also continued to hone her instincts regarding form and function as it applied to creating collages from items that she collected during her travels. Some of McElroy's accomplishment highlights are working with Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, on a few projects in Los Angeles, California; staged art shows each spring for several years at The Southwest Museum as an instructor for the Los Angeles Unified School District's Indian Education Program; held art shows in Montecito and Santa Barbara, California. During the nearly eight years that McElroy resided in Santa Barbara, California, she decided to begin mounting her work onto canvas, which opened up a whole new level of interest in her work. McElroy's art is owned by doctors, PR Representative for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, business owners, and students whose parent took an interest in her work. McElroy has been known for labeling her work bathroom art because it gives the person using the facility something to read and/or consider. She cites influences that range from Monet to Picasso to Warhol and John Lennon. Most recently, McElroy has studied the Reggio Emilia approach to creative expression as it applies to her work, and she also teaches a collage construction class at the North Hollywood Senior Artist's Colony.
