Barb Beckman

Art Brokerage: Barb Beckman American Glass Artist: Before becoming a full time artist, she trained and worked professionally as an architect. In its simplest form, architecture also stresses this concept of functional beauty. A well-designed architectural space is functional, well proportioned and beautiful. The design skills and craftsmanship that she acquired during her training and subsequent professional architectural experience greatly contribute to my ability, to her creativity and to the execution of her art. She has been working with glass for nearly 20 years and continue to be mesmerized by the textures, reflections and colors it offers. Through her three dimensional works, she is able to further accentuate these natural characteristics to create intriguing and functional art objects. In her artwork, the beauty of the glass is highlighted by using simple geometric forms. She has always been interested in geometry and the endless possibilities for design with a simple selection of shapes, and the beauty that precision brings to geometric work. The Arts and Crafts style dovetails with her work and her philosophy of simple, finely crafted and detailed shapes. Each project is made individually by hand. After each design is drafted, the sheet glass is precisely cut and ground to fit the pattern. Each piece of glass is then wrapped in copper foil and soldered together. After the work is assembled, it is cleaned, a patina may then be applied to the solder, and the project is rinsed and cleaned again. The work is then given a final coat of glass wax and polished a final time. Often, she adds overlays of additional layers of glass to achieve effects not possible with a single layer. She also adds wirework to the design as a way of enhancing the geometric design of the piece. She particularly enjoy working with the reflections of mirror and iridescent glass in her work. Her work is currently represented by various galleries in Illinois. Listings wanted.