Art prodigy LaVerne Mahorney was a native of Louisville, Kentucky, where her talent was recognized early. At the age of 17, she showed more than 50 watercolors, oils, drawings and sculptures in a show at her high school. A scholarship to the Art Center School soon followed, starting her on a career as artist and educator.

By 1945 Mahorney was teaching at the Art Center Association and Louisville Collegiate School while attending the University of Louisville. The next year, her work was shown in a national show at the Pasadena Art Institute (now the Norton Simon Museum) in California. In 1948 she showed in the Under 25 exhibition organized by the Jacques Seligmann Gallery in New York City which toured the country.

Mahorney received a master of arts degree from the State University of Iowa (University of Iowa) in 1951, a time when the legacy of WPA giant Grant Wood was still strong there. She soon moved to Connecticut, where she was a public-school teacher and married fellow teacher Charles W. Kelson Jr. After retiring, she took a master of divinity degree from Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts, was ordained and became a pastor.

Her works are in the collection of the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, and she is featured in the 2020 PFA Press book, Louisville Modern: An Era in Art.