Lisa Beckman earned a BFA Studio Art from ODU in ’86, and an MAT Visual Studies/Urban Education from NSU in ’92; her post-grad work has been at SCAD, VCU, and ODU. A retired 34-year Norfolk Public Schools Art Teacher and former NAEA Middle School Art Teacher of the Year, Tidewater Region, she is a facilitator for art teacher professional development and a teacher of community studio classes, most recently at the Chrysler Museum of Art, and served as an Adjunct Instructor at ODU as University Supervisor of Art Education Interns, Spring ’24.
Lisa is a working and commissioned artist in b/w wet darkroom and digital photography, drawing/painting, wood furniture and sculpture, & metalsmithing/jewelry. She apprenticed as a stained-glass glazier in ’75 and continues to take on commissions. Her influences on current work are Joyce J. Scott, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Robert Rauschenberg. Lisa is also interested in gardening, kayaking, yoga, hiking, cycling, & camping; and she plays the ukulele.
“Uncapped and Uncontained: A Partial Legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg”
2026. Recycled/upcycled materials, aluminum wire and chain, laser prints, packing tape, laminate sheet, craft foam, puff and dot paints, acrylic rod, velvet ribbon, o-rings, adhesive.
This work considers feminism, justice, and human frailty.
“The late Justice Ginsburg (“The Notorious” R.B.G.) was a symbol of hope for many, perhaps mostly for the so-called second-wave feminists she was one of. Intellectually brilliant, she was one of the early tiny minority of women at Harvard Law School, represented underdog plaintiffs and won, and was eventually appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
She was a family woman: happy to attempt domestic duties, raise children, and nurse a cancer-stricken husband back to health, all while pursuing her professional career. She was a friend to compatriots and also forged meaningful, long-term friendships with justices from the political opposition, setting an example of high diplomacy.
However, as inspiring and groundbreaking as she was, she also had some Achilles’ heels. She has been named a failure in some instances regarding D.E.I., political protests, and Native American heritage; moreover, she broke the hearts of many when she, for personal commitment reasons, refused to step down from the highest Court and set the dominoes falling for inequity in our American judicial system. I think of this work as a montage of memories- unpredictably and unreally disappearing and reappearing. The upcycled/recycled materials represent the fundamentals and diversity of life. It is often said that the achievement of the privileged and successful rides on the backs of everyday folk- this is symbolized in the recycled caps and containers. The memory images are relevant to R.B.G. and my histories. Inspired by international traditional and contemporary “women’s” and general crafting, this is a wardrobe of nine “collars”, at hand to represent a particular past and be mantles in the future. It is not an accident that the work references the products once inside the recycled items, hip-hop attire, and Jacob Marley’s chains. I hope the upcycled items make waggish commentary on the foundations of greatness and intellectual apogee.
R.B.G. was as human as they come: living a life of contradiction, care, triumph, and occasionally narrow vision. Her legacy stands as a testament to all of our ignorances, loves, wins, and missteps.
Notorious…”
