Public Art

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Time to Reflect: A Human Sundial

This installation was created as part of a juried outdoor sculpture exhibition titled “Reflections” on Main Street in the Cultural District of Cummington, Massachusetts. The piece is a “Human Sundial”, in which the shadow of a person standing on an in-ground date path keyed to a specific latitude and longitude points to vertical hour markers set on an ellipse around the date path. In this case, the sundial tells both the time and local history, as it is set on the lawn of the Kingman Tavern Museum, the museum of the Historical Commission of Cummington. Each hour marker tells an episode of Cummington history, using ceramic sculpture and signage. The installation also includes ceramic and wooden tiles created in community workshops, and the plan is for the piece to be an ongoing, and on-growing, public art installation with community input.

Iris Wooed by Zephyrus at the Norman Rockwell Museum

This sculpture was included in the Land of Enchantment juried outdoor sculpture exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA in 2021. The work received the judges award for Most Inventive.

The piece is currently on display at Art in the Orchard in Easthampton, MA.

Unique/United at MAP Gallery

Originally exhibited as part of Beckie’s solo show, “Concealed/Revealed“, February 2020.

Ongoing public art installation with community participation.

The center panel contains heads and masks sculpted by Beckie Kravetz. The grid panels on either side show self-portraits painted on wooden tiles painted by members of the community where the piece has been exhibited.

The piece will continue to be shown at different venues, and more community portraits will be added

Reunion at Art in the Orchard

August-November 2017

Statement: My vision as a sculptor draws its inspiration from theater and opera, where I have been a mask-maker and makeup artist for over 30 years. As a sculptor, I continue to be fascinated by the human face. I love creating characters and having them interact with other characters. In Reunion, the detailed faces emphasize the individual humanity of the figures, while their monolithic, earthen bodies honor the clay and our connection to soil and planet, and echo an ancient tradition of standing stones that has appeared in cultures worldwide.

Carrying Capacity at Brookline Bank

Collaboration with Nancy Milliken. Nancy consulted with climate change writers and scientists, to create work for Brookline Climate Action for their Brookline Climate Week in the beginning of April, 2016. Nancy was invited to create installations in four store fronts and the Town Hall of Brookline, MA, to stimulate climate awareness. She invited Beckie to collaborate on the installation below, titled Carrying Capacity.

The text accompanying the installation was as follows:

As we add a million more humans every 4.2 days, our demands for food, shelter, goods, mobility, and energy exceed the carrying capacities of both our atmosphere and our planet. The squashed Earth can barely support this ghostly figure, weighed down by the spilling mass of people and looking wistfully at the viewer, imploring an answer.

Woven Words Project at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

Woven Words is a collaboration that pairs two Tucson, AZ cultural institutions: the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

The project features poetry installations throughout the Museum grounds, each underscoring the profound relationship between knowledge, the imagination, and an ethos of conservation.

Beckie was commissioned to create masks of two desert animals, a horned owl and a ringtail cat. Fragments of poems selected by Eric Magrane, who created the Project, are inscribed inside the faces of the masks.

Tile Mural at Berkshire Trail Elementary School, Cummington, MA

Beckie received grants from the National Education Association and two Massachusetts Local Cultural Councils to be an artist in residence for several months, working with students and teachers from the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades at Berkshire Trail. The project included visits to the Cummington and Windsor history museums, a walk down Main Street narrated by a local historian. We used our research to create tile murals illustrating local history, local natural history, and what was happing in other parts of the world when our towns were founded (late 1770’s). The school has been de-commissioned, but this mural is a lasting reminder of the history and the people that made it a vibrant learning space for many years.

Bronze bust of Bill Lowell

This portrait was commissioned for the Lowell Memorial Plaza at the University of Arizona. Bill Lowell was a star football player at the University, and was a member of the last team to play before the season was put on hold during World War II. Lowell and three other teammates were killed in the war. Another pedestal in the Plaza honors the team, and Bill’s fellow fallen team-mates.

Tile Murals at Casa Paloma Community Garden, Tucson, AZ

Beckie received grants from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council and a private foundation to work with homeless women, women in transitional housing, and community members creating tile murals to enhance the walls of the Barrio Anita community garden. Workshops were held over a series of months, and over 100 people contributed to the project.