Beck Baumann started selling her art out of necessity. Not for money, but to make room in her closet. After years of creating sculptures made of styrofoam, paint and glued sequins, Baumann ran out of space to keep her glittering projects.
She had considered selling her art before, but she and her family were unsure it was possible, as her style is very niche.
“I’m completely self-taught,” Baumann said. “There’s no, like, manual or book or anything that I’ve ever found that really shows you. There are some people on Instagram … who do sequin art, but there’s not that many.”
Her art is reminiscent of pop art with bright colors and defined lines that are given depth and shadows through different colored sequins. Though at first glance the art looks almost like stuffed cloth someone could squish, Baumann said all the pieces are made from styrofoam and glue.
“I don’t know how to sew,” Baumann said.
Though she loves working with Styrofoam, she does not like the negative impact it has on the environment. She tries to mitigate that by using Styrofoam she finds in her neighbors’ trash while walking her dog, Teddy Bear.
Her sculptures depict things like TVs, ducks, and foods like cakes and deviled eggs. In preparation for an upcoming installation at the Oats Park art Center in Fallon, Baumann’s studio is covered with various pairs of lips and glittering eyeballs.
“I’m trying to stick to more of a theme now,” she said. “Lips and eyes.”
Baumann started pursuing art when she was in her mid-30s, as her two children grew older and more independent. A stay-at-home mom, she was starting to feel bored and decided to take graphic design classes at Truckee Meadows Community College. Though she loved the study of graphic design, she said she was too independent to want to stick with it as a career path.
“I don’t want to work on other people’s projects,” Baumann said. “So, I just started making things. And because I was coming out of graphic design, I was really heavy in illustration and computer skills at that time.”
Baumann didn’t stray from illustration until she saw a Volkswagen Beetle completely covered in glass beads, made by an indigenous group in Mexico.
“It was really beautiful,” she said. “And so I was kind of inspired, like, that’s amazing. How can I get into that?”
After exploring some other art forms, Baumann started her work with sequins with a Styrofoam head she named “Eve.” This was the first of many sequined projects she completed, but the art remained private until last year.
After making money for the first time at the 2023 Brew HaHa, the Sierra Arts Foundation’s annual fundraiser, Baumann was ready to take on the art world.
Now, she is getting ready for her first artist reception on Aug. 27 at Reno City Hall, for her exhibition All That Glitters.
The most significant change Baumann said she has experienced since starting selling her art and displaying her sculptures more publicly was transferring the meaning of a piece from her own to the audience or buyers.
“No one told me that,” Baumann said. “I realized that, wow, this is what happens when I sit here in front of my art and talk to people about it. I’ve heard really cool stories.”
One of her favorite stories involved an elderly woman with a little dog tucked under her arm, who told Baumann her sequined work reminded her of a movie she had seen in her childhood that featured crystals, glasses, and sparkling lights.
“It was such a memory for her that she bought a piece because she wanted to take that memory and have it in her home,” Baumann said. “And of course, I didn’t have any idea of that when I was making the piece she bought, but that’s how we connected together through one piece of art. Stuff like that gives me chills.”
However, not every interaction people have with Baumann’s colorful, sparkling artwork is purely wholesome. She did an informal survey at one of her booths, asking visitors if they liked sequins.
“Everyone to my face said, ‘No,’” Baumann said, laughing. “I’ve even had a collector tell me to my face, she’s like, ‘Actually, I actively dislike sequins so much because they’re tied to a bad memory. When I was a little kid, I had all these scratchy sequin dance uniforms, and I hated them.’”
Baumann didn’t have the heart to tell the collector she had bought a sequined piece from Baumann six months before the interaction. She said people who don’t enjoy sequins might not like the materials she uses but are still drawn to her work.
“People who just unabashedly admit, ‘I love sparkly. I love the sequins … Those people are like, truly my people,’” Baumann said. “The ones who don’t like sequins though, that still want my work, those are the ones that kind of are cracking me up right now.”
Another change Baumann is adjusting to is how to prepare for shows. On top of getting ready for her first reception, she is creating multiple pairs of giant, glittering Styrofoam lips and solo eyeballs for the months-long Fallon show. She must also build these pieces to survive packaging, transport, and possibly selling.
“I had to get it to a place where I felt like it was durable, it was quality, I could send it off into the world and it wouldn’t fall apart on someone,” she said.
But she’s excited that her art will be in people’s homes, where she hopes they’ll notice intricacies and different elements as they observe a piece for years.
“When we’re scrolling on a phone, we’re walking through a museum, we’re walking through an art fair, you give it three seconds, and that’s a long look, like one second is probably more fair,” Baumann said. “When you live with it, I will sit on my couch and just contemplate a painting, and I’ve looked at some of my paintings for years now. I will still kick out little things or moments where I’m like, oh, like, I didn’t even realize you put that in there. That’s so cool.”
“I don’t know why that resonates with me so hard, but I’m hopeful that with my art, they get that same kind of buzz,” she said. “Especially because with sequins, for me, the cool part about it is that it changes with the light and the way it changes. It changes how the piece looks through the entire day, and in a weird way, at night, they glitter even twice as much.”
Beck Baumann’s exhibition All that Glitters is on view in the Metro Gallery inside Reno City Hall through Sept. 20 with a reception on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
Her exhibition Fun and Games will be on view at the Oats Park Art Center in Fallon from Feb. 10 – May 5, 2025.
Follow @beckbaumann on Instagram.
Photos courtesy of Beck Baumann
