Ann Beck

My name is Ann Beck. I’m an embroidery artist, former theatrical costume designer, and textile artist. 

I worked as a costume designer from 1993 - 2007 and owned a costume shop in San Francisco which constructed stage costumes for dance companies and professional figure skaters across the United States and internationally, including costumes for more than 30 productions at San Francisco Ballet. 

During my career, I designed costumes for some of the top figure skaters in the world, including Olympic and World Champions Brian Boitano, Kristi Yamaguchi, Dorothy Hamill, Katarina Witt, and Tara Lipinski. I designed and made costumes for numerous ballet companies, television figure skating specials, theater companies, singers and acrobats. 

I worked with Tony Award winning designers and choreographers, and world class ballet dancers. My costume designs were seen many times on the Stars on Ice and Champions on Ice tours, both live and on television, and costumes constructed at my shop were featured on the cover of Dance Magazine. 

I retired from costume design 17 years ago. I have continued to work as an artist, designing and creating fine hand embroideries. As a costume designer, I was known for my use of intricate appliqué embroideries, brilliant color, and hand painted and dyed textiles. I continue to use glorious colors in my embroidery designs, and enjoy creating textural interest with multiple techniques, including silk shading, goldwork and beading. 

I am so excited to share my artwork with you in this embroidery workshop for Creative Experiences. I have designed an exclusive kit for the workshop based on a portion of one of my larger embroideries, Nightbirds, which I have been working on for several years. For now, the kit will be available only to the participants in this workshop. 

I have loved embroidery since I was a young girl and was never happier than when I had my head buried in a French fashion magazine studying beautiful couture embroideries. I am passionate about teaching and passing my knowledge of embroidery on to others, and look forward to meeting you all soon and exchanging stories about our shared love of this incredible art form. — Ann