Born in Chicago, Illinois, Carolyn Guerra received her B. A. degree in Art  and English at Alverno College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Carolyn continued her studies touring European museums and galleries and as a student of the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied drawing, painting, and printmaking.

She taught painting, sculpture, and printmaking at the high school and university level, as well as in her own studio in Barrington, Illinois.

She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Northwestern University where her mentors were Ed Paschke in painting, Martin Levine in printmaking, Elaine King in support and direction and Leland Rohloff in mind-expanding creativity.

Carolyn is a multi-media artist who is continuously discovering and creating. Currently her sculptural preoccupation is both in bronze and concrete sculptures enhanced with her own ceramic creations or found glass objects. The paradoxical themes of togetherness and opposition reoccur as in her earlier work. The contrasts manifest themselves both in the subject matter of the works and in her choices of materials; the juxtaposition of both smooth and excessive detailed textures in her bronze sculptures and the rough, matte finish of the concrete and the smooth, glossy surface of glass or glazed ceramic creations in her concrete sculptures.