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In The Studio with Stonington’s Siri Beckman
Stonington Ice Cream, a wood engraving by Siri Beckman (above).
Below right: Siri Beckman greeting a visitor at her Stonington studio. |
Siri Beckman is best known for her expressive black and white prints or wood engravings as they are technically named. Although an art history ma-
jor,Beckman never encountered the medium until she moved to Maine in 1975. She says it was a book that led her “quite by chance, into a career now some 35 years in length.”
Over the years her career has included many phases, the first being a founder of an early craft co-op in Stonington. Later she was represented by local galleries.
In the 90s Beckman returned to graduate school at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, receiving an MFA in Printmaking and Book Arts. Teaching at the University of Maine, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, and area schools, she also organized a series of workshops on Eagle Island around the making of hand made artists journals.
Downeast Books published her illustrated book, A Week at the Lake, inspired by the diary of Grace Butterfield Dow and written by Nan Mulford. In the past decade, Beckman was awarded several Artist Residencies in the National Parks including Acadia, Badlands and Rocky Mountain. |
 Beckman opens the studio to the public, and says visitors are able to see how the prints are created, cut, and printed. Wood engraving, a relief printmaking technique dating back to the 1700s, involves many hours of careful cutting of the image into hard woods like maple and English boxwood. Once the cutting is complete, the block is printed, numbered and signed.
She says she has more than just prints at the studio. In recent years she has returned to painting. The most recent selection is from her artist residency at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. |
“Merge Beckman’s 25 years of wood engraving experience with a master’s degree in printmaking, and a dedication to paying close attention to what is around her, and we have, living among us, a master technician and true artist.
She engages the viewer with her accomplished artistic abilities: she designs interesting compositions and she demonstrates impeccable techniques in printmaking.
Beyond these qualities, there is another characteristic that is present in Beckman’s work that cannot be learned. It is perhaps, born with the person who is destined to be an artist. It is the ability to imbue one’s creative works with soul, a quality that is difficult to describe in words.
Description attempted, ‘soulfulness’ involves a communication of depth, or the creation of a profound connection, from the artist through the artwork to the viewer.”
– Jules Masterjohn
for the Durango [Colorado] Telegraph
Siri Beckman Studio, Wed-Fri from 10-5 and by chance or appointment. 115 Airport Road, Stonington. 207 367-5037 www.siribeckman.com
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