Bio

Biography

Erin McClain (Em) Beck grew up in Michigan and has lived in five different states since then, all on the east coast.

After adulting her way unhappily through a series of administrative jobs, she decided to study art in her free time, and maybe, hopefully, make a living at it. She's audited classes at the Mass College of Art, attended workshops, online classes and lectures to enhance her art education. Online she's studied lighting with classes from Neil van Niekerk, styling and retouching classes with Kim Klassen and expressive painting with Flora Bowley. Isn't the internet grand?

She decided to open Rains on the Plain to sell Fine art prints and paintings in 2009.  Since that initial opening it's undergone many changes, including one move. After relocating to Pittsburgh, Erin McClain Studio reopened. In addition to commercial, event and business photography, Erin has a store on the popular art website Society6. Since then it has expanded to include fabric, paintings and photographic tools.

Her photographic work was displayed at Karlsson Fine Art in Avon, CT from September 2009 - March 2010, when the gallery closed.  Since then, her paintings and prints have found homes in many private collections and through her store have found their way onto iPhone cases and laptop skins.  Besides working in photography, she enjoys making digital art renderings of space and nebulae, painting in various mediums (mainly pastel and watercolor) and writing.

She shoots on a Canon currently, but older work was done with a Pentax K100D.  She also uses film on occasion, using Nikon film cameras and experimenting with the Holga and lomography cameras.  For software, Em uses Adobe Creative Suite CC,  primarily Photoshop, Lightroom, and procreate on her iPad.

Her first children's story, THE FOUR SKILLED SISTERS, a retelling of a classic fairy tale to be more inclusive, was published by Eggplant Productions in 2014 in the anthology Spellbound and Spindles. A second story, a short speculative fiction tale called PURPOSE was published by Devilfish Review in January 2016. She has had subsequent artwork and stories published in Ligature Works, Swamp Ape Review and Spirit's Tincture Magazine.

Em proudly holds memberships in the  Professional Photographers of America (PPA), Sisters In Crime (Mary Rinehart Roberts and Guppy Chapters), Pennwriters and the Junior League of Pittsburgh.

She spends her off time with her husband, running, crocheting, reading and playing video games.