Leslie Elliottsmith grew-up in New Orleans, lived in Baton Rouge for ten years, and has resided in Alexandria since 1983 when she became education curator for the Alexandria Museum of Art. She always wanted to be an artist, drawing and painting as a child. She attended LSU and received a BS in art education and a Masters of Fine Arts in printmaking/painting. Throughout the years she has taught in various capacities at LSU, UNO, LSUA, LC, NSU, and ULM as well as a series of artist in residencies across the State of Louisiana. For the past twenty-five years she taught Fine Arts Survey and AP art history through the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts, Virtual School program and was named director of the program in mid- 2013, before retiring in mid-2015. In 1994, she received the Louisiana State Visual Artists Fellowship for painting. Her art works are part of many public and private collections and she has been in well over 150 exhibitions. She has been commissioned to create outdoor murals in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and several in Alexandria. Her art works are represented by LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans.