Karen received her BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art in 1987 and her Tamarind Master Printer certification from The Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque New Mexico in 1998. She currently lives and works in Cleveland Ohio.

She has exhibited extensively in the Cleveland Ohio region and has affiliation with Zygote Press, The Morgan Conservatory for Papermaking, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She was awarded a two-month artist residency at Bamboo Curtain Studio in Taiwan in 2016.

Beckwith has since grown into an accomplished and recognized artist, exhibiting within shows such as the annual juried show at the Jewish Community Center, Cleveland, Ohio (1991), the grand reopening of Tamarind Institute’s gallery, Albuquerque, New Mexico (1997), the 1st Ohio Print Biennial at the Beck Center for the Arts, Lakewood, Ohio (1999), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio (2005, 2006), the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (2006), the Print Out Times exhibit, Taoyuan, Taiwan ROC (2021), and III Novosibirsk Graphic Art Triennial in Novosibirsk, Russia (2021).

Her work is also within the permanent collections of Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois, Southern Graphics Council in Statesboro, Georgia, the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Instituto Chileno Norteamericano in Santiago, Chile, the Fine Arts School in Bangalore, India, the BF Goodrich Corporation in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Progressive Art Collection in Cleveland, Ohio.