Barbara Nerenz-Kelley’s career as an artist began with six colored pencils and a few grayish sheets of paper. That is what was available in the aftermath of World War II

Born in Braunschweig, Germany she studied painting in her early twenties at the Akademie fuer Werkkunst in Berlin from 1963 to1965. During her career as a counselor and therapist in Munich she took up painting again and joined the Atelier Projekt Muenchen. In 1999/2000 she participated in the Essence of the Arts program at the Findhorn Foundation, a spiritual community in Scotland where she met her American husband, the writer Robert Eaton Kelley.

She relocated from Germany to Asheville, NC in 2004. After beginning her stay in the USA as a teacher for Sacred Circle Dance, she soon committed to work as a professional painter.