Born in Brooklyn, New York, Margaret Bellafiore grew up on an island (Staten) in New York harbor.

She studied Biology for her undergraduate degree at St. Johns University and later received a Diploma and Fifth Year Certificate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She received the Boit Prize and was awarded the Clarissa Bartlett Traveling Scholarship for her installation “On Becoming My Great Grandmother.” Finding the cave on the island of Levanzo, she saw evidence of her ancestors.

Bellafiore has been a member of the Mobius Artists Group since 1992. She has been a participant in many Mobius projects including artist exchanges in former Yugoslavia. Bellafiore is presently developing a series of drawing marathons at Mobius.

She is a member of the art faculty of Bridgewater State University and received a Whiting Foundation Travel Grant in 2008 to visit the sites of Van Gogh’s last works in Arles, France. While in France, she was inspired by the prehistoric drawings on the cave walls of the Grotte de Font de Gaume. Bellafiore received a grant from the Puffin Foundation in 2010 to support the "Combat to Campus" project, a sound installation of the voices of veterans.

She now lives on a narrow peninsula with a bay at the end of her street and a river at the top.