About

Artists Image Resource (AIR) initiates and facilitates projects with professional artists, creating an active laboratory environment where artists, students, and the community interact. 

AIR provides facilities and equipment, technical assistance, and printmaking expertise.

On the production side, AIR initiates broad projects with professional artists challenging them to create new never before imagined work. These projects serve as the engines of all other studio activities.

On the learning and education front, AIR integrates the creation of fine art prints with educational programs that explore the role of the artist in contemporary culture. AIR provides workshops, tutorials and printing events for adults while supporting youth culture by developing workshops, classes and outreach activities in and out of the studio.

On the public access side, AIR provides printing services, scheduled studio work sessions, hands-on classes and tutorials, and an archive of made-at-AIR prints for exhibition and sale.

History

Artists Image Resources (AIR) was established in 1996, was incorporated as a nonprofit Pennsylvania Corporation in 1997 and received nonprofit 501(c) 3 tax status in 1998. In 1996, AIR started working with professional artists on projects and began to organize resources in a 10,000 square foot space in an urban neighborhood on the North Side of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. In 1996 and 1997, AIR began working with university educators to design programs that would allow the aspiring artist to work directly, hand in hand, with the professional artist in an active real world studio environment. This methodology continues to define the studio as the active and engaged art production and learning laboratory that it is today.

Staff & Crew

  • Robert Beckman

    Co-Founder, Executive / Artistic Director

    Robert Beckman is an artist and educator with over 40 years of experience exhibiting work and teaching (Carnegie Mellon University and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania).

  • Megan Haselden

    Financial Management

    Megan (Meg) Haselden is the founder of Steel City Accounting, a virtual tax and accounting firm specializing in Income Tax Preparation and Client Accounting Services for small businesses, creative professionals and arts organizations. 

  • Erin Pace

    Operations Manager / Printmaker

    Erin Pace is an artist living and working in Pittsburgh PA. Erin has a BFA in Visual Arts from West Virginia University and has been working as a prodrct manager for several years.

  • Feliks Pyron

    Lead Printmaker

    Feliks RK Pyron (he/they) is a queer artist. Originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, they received their BFA from Texas A&M CC in 2016, and an MFA from West Virginia University in 2020.

  • Jafar Turner

    Printmaker / Artist / Educator

    Jafar Turner is an artist and designer living and working in Pittsburgh, PA. Jafar has a BFA from the Rochester Institute of Design

  • Sarah Preston

    Assistant

    Student Artist, Slippery Rock University.

Board

  • Mark Franchino

    Board Chair

    An Artist, Designer, Craftsperson, and Educator living in Western PA. Originally from Long Island NY, Mark has an MFA from the University of Delaware. Mark has shown in more than 100 group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. His work blurs the lines between art/design, abstraction/figuration, flat/dimensional, art/not-art, work/play, real/not-real.

    https://www.markfranchinodesigns.com

  • Melinda Wilson Pietrusza

    Executive Committee Member

    Melinda has over 15 years of experience working for non-profit arts organizations, primarily in membership, development, and event coordination. She has volunteered her administrative and marketing services to AIR for many years. She currently serves as the Community Development Coordinator for the Borough of Etna.

  • Robert Beckman

    Co-Founder, Board Member, Executive Committee Member.

    Mr. Beckman is an artist and educator with over 30 years of experience exhibiting work and teaching (Carnegie Mellon University and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania). Mr. Beckman is an accomplished printmaker and has years of experience running small businesses.

    R. Beckman: Interview, The Saturday Light Brigade

    R. Beckman: Interview, Personaland

  • Michael Hegedus

    Board Member

    Michael Hegedus is an artist and accomplished printmaker. Michael has a BFA from The University of Pittsburgh and has been assisting with production, education and community access projects with Artists Image Resource since 2010.

  • Hannah Turpin

    Art and Exhibition Committee, Board Member

    Is an American curator in the contemporary art field. Hannah has served as the Curatorial Assistant of Photography and Contemporary Art at the Carnegie Museum of Art and works with Casey Droege Cultural Productions. She has worked with institutions including Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Columbus Museum of Art.

  • Sara Radelet

    Founding Board Member

    Sara Radelet is Chief External Affairs Officer for Solar One. Sara has over 25 years’ experience in fundraising and organizational management, with prior work in sectors of climate change and environment, higher education, and the arts. Sara served as Head of Fundraising for C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (in London and New York) and was previously Advancement Coordinator at the American University of Paris.

  • Joseph Lupo

    Education Committee, Board Member

    Joseph Lupo is a Professor of Art at West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia. Mr. Lupo is an accomplished printmaker and has held leadership positions with several academic and print-related organizations including SGC International.

    https://josephlupo.com

    Joseph Lupo: interview, In Community and Company

  • Paradise Gray

    Board Member

    Paradise Gray is a community organizer, author, artist, music producer, historian, and a founding member of 1Hood. Before moving to Pittsburgh in 1992 from the Bronx, Gray’s career in hip hop is legendary as a member of the group X Clan and as the manager and promoter for the hip-hop club “The Latin Quarter” in New York City in the 1980s.

  • Madeline L. Gent

    Board Member

    Madeline Gent is the Executive Director at the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. She came to Pittsburgh from Washington, D.C. where she previously held positions at the Smithsonian’s Freer Sackler, University of Maryland Art Gallery, Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture, and Johns Hopkins University. She has an M.A. from the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland.

Advisory Board

  • Alison Oehler

    Is the Director of Concept Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA.

  • Stefan Hoffmann

    An internationally recognized vertical screenprinting artist. Mr. Hoffmann uses screenprinting to create site specific projects which re-contextualize information graphics. His projects create perturbations in the way we perceive our visual environment. More about the artist can be found here: https://hoffmannprinting.com/

    Stefan Hoffmann: Interview, In Community and Company

  • Howard Booth

    An artist and arts administrator currently living and working in California.

  • Mary Martin

    Mary Martin is an artist and educator living in Pittsburgh PA. She is actively involved in special projects initiatives for organizations such as: August Wilson Center for African American Culture of Pittsburgh, the Andy Warhol Museum, Women of Visions, Inc., The Society for Contemporary Craft, Winchester Thurston School and others.

    https://mary-martin-9koq.squarespace.com

  • Jefferson Pinder

    Jefferson Pinder is an interdisciplinary artist who has produced highly praised performance-based and multidisciplinary work for over a decade. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group shows including exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, The High Museum in Atlanta, the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. and Tate Modern in London, UK. He is currently Professor of Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

    https://www.jeffersonpinder.com

  • Alisha Wormsley

    Alisha B Wormsley (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Her work contributes to the imagining of the future of arts, science, and technology through the Black matriarchal lens, challenging contemporary views of modern American life through whichever medium she feels is the best form of expression.

    https://www.alishabwormsley.com

Affiliated Printers

  • Ian Short

    Co-Founder (Honorary) Resident Printmaker

    Mr. Short is one of the co-founders of AIR and had been responsible for overseeing all printing activities undertaken by AIR up until 2015. Mr. Short spent 30 years teaching printmaking and photography, 20 years at Edinboro University where he served as the chairman of the Art Department from 1993 to 1996.

  • Catherine Drabkin

    Artist, Painter and Educator

    Before receiving an MFA in painting from Queens College/CUNY, Catherine Drabkin was immersed in printmaking, and has returned to the practice frequently as an offshoot of her career as a painter and educator. A founding instructor of the Delaware College of Art and Design, she has explored and exhibited both painting and printmaking locally and nationally.

  • Michael Budai

    Printmaker

    Michael has been assisting with production, education and community access projects with Artists Image Resource since 2010. Michael has a BFA from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and is a working artist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania