About Kelly

Kelly Bigelow Becerra (April 7, 1975 - July 8, 2024) was an artist, filmmaker, designer, teacher, singer, musician, and roller skater. Her enthusiasm for art and life was infectious. She has shared her love of art to frankly, anyone that would listen, helping them see beauty and the art and design in the world around them.

An alumna of the Cleveland Institute of Art and a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Kelly, a.k.a. ArtStar Kelly, lived a life fully immersed in the Arts. Kelly remains well-respected for her bold ideas, artistic vision, skill, and achievements, her advocacy for the arts, arts education, and quality design. She was an accomplished visual artist, filmmaker, and designer.

Kelly was an early digital art pioneer of scanography, working with flatbed scanners to fully scan classmates and family members and large scale objects like a toy riding horse, trees, her grandmother’s china cabinet, and farm buildings and equipment, to create thought provoking work about her experiences growing up in a small rural community. Her work has been shown and collected by significant institutions, such as the Aldrich Museum and Eastern Connecticut State University.  

She was a multiple award winning filmmaker, along with her film partner, Roland Becerra.  Their films were shown in festivals worldwide, including at Cannes and as an official selection of The Sundance Film Festival. Together Kelly and Roland’s films have received countless nominations and been awarded over 40 awards, including Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Animation, Best Animated Feature, Best Experimental Film. Best Special Effects, Best Feature Editing, and more.

Kelly’s design work beautified the city of New Haven and local business improvement projects in Bridgeport. 

Throughout her life and career, she loved teaching and mentoring art students in her hometown of Jonesville. When Jonesville was in need of a long-term substitute art teacher,  Kelly paused her life on the East Coast to return to Jonesville to teach the students of her alma mater. Her students thrived as her passion and enthusiasm for art helped them to recognize their own potentials and meet the high standards that she had set for them. Kelly continued to mentor Jonesville students long after she returned to Connecticut, providing advice for those going into the fields of art or film even as she struggled with symptoms from her cancer.

Kelly resided at Read’s ArtSpace in downtown Bridgeport, CT where she could be seen rollerskating in its long hallways. She was a founding resident and her personality and guidance have shaped both its artist community and building history.

Kelly died peacefully at home surrounded by loved ones after a long battle with an extremely rare, terminal, incurable cancer—Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma of the Bartholin Gland. She did not want to go and absolutely said that she would have lived 500 lifetimes if she could, so great was her love of the life and art and people. Kelly survived through sheer determination and will. She was supported by the love and thoughtfulness of her loved ones and friends.

Kelly was a bright light, a loving and outgoing person who had a way of making all people around her feel like the most important person in her orbit. She leaves behind so many who adored her and were warmed by the light of which she was made.

Kelly will be laid to rest alongside her beloved dog, Lucian, in Sunset View Cemetery in her hometown of Jonesville, MI. A celebration of life for Kelly will be held on November 9, 2024 at TBD in Michigan. A New England memorial service for Kelly’s gang will be held on September 21, 2024 at Wooster Square Park in New Haven, Connecticut at TBD.

To honor Kelly’s memory, please make donations to her GoFundMe campaign which will help preserve her art for future generations and support the art education of the students in the Jonesville School District.