For more than four decades, Karen "Kari" Beims told her life story with her hands.
At age 5, she illustrated homemade books and designed the Beims' family Christmas cards. Then she painted renderings of flowers, fruit and vegetables with oils, and sculpted human figures out of stone.
"Karen's artwork reflected her personality," said Connie Beims, her mother. "There was always something extraordinarily sensual and romantic about it."
Karen's childhood passion for art blossomed into a career as a graphic artist and art instructor at a community college. But her art came to an end in 2006, when she died from complications ofan eating disorder.
To honor Karen, her mother, her father Bill Beims - a retired aerospace engineer at Aberdeen Proving Ground - and her three younger siblings are preparing a tribute to her work in a show and are starting an art scholarship in her name.
Prince George's Community College, where she taught art part time, will also present the first Kari Beims Sculpture Award.
The art exhibit will open at the Gallery at the Liriodendron on March 2. It will showcase about 50 pieces of Karen Beims' artwork. The show will include artwork that Karen created as a child, as well as a partially completed painting that depicts an avocado cut down the middle, with a seed exposed, that she was working on shortly before she died.
Karen's art career began when the 5-year-old received her first pens, pencils and watercolors. Mostly she drew children with big eyes, who were happy and jolly, said Connie Beims, 69, of Darlington, who was a former vice president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, for about seven years.
Karen spent a majority of her time drawing and creating art, and her school work came easy for her, Beims said of her daughter, who was born in March 1960, in Havre De Grace.
When she started kindergarten, she couldn't read. But by November of that year, she was reading at a fifth-grade level, Connie said. She did so well that she skipped second grade, her mother said.
At age 11, Karen was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer, Beims said. Although doctors said there was only a 30 percent survival rate, Karen beat the disease.
"She had such determination that on the Saturday after her last radiation treatment, she walked in the annual March of Dimes Walk," Connie said.
Over the years, Karen's art changed and she painted mostly large depictions of flowers - lilies and irises - with oils. Her works were similar to those of artist Georgia O'Keeffe.
Although she took art classes in high school at John Carroll School, Karen focused her attention on Russia. She learned the language and traveled to Russia with a school group.
Upon graduating from John Carroll, Karen planned to study the Russian language at the University of Virginia. But when her mentor went on sabbatical, she discovered the art department and changed her major to art history, Connie said.
In 1981, fresh out of college, Karen started work as a graphic designer and marketing executive, her mother said.
Karen attended the University of North Carolina, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1992, in secondary education specializing in art education. When she left North Carolina, she taught at Aberdeen High School in 1992, and then at Pikesville High School from 1993 to 1995.
Then in 1996, she founded Dezining One Visual Communications, a graphic design business in Baltimore. In 2003, she became a part-time faculty member at Prince George's Community College, where she taught art.
During this same time, Karen's problems with bulimia - an eating disorder characterized by binge eating followed by inappropriate weight loss practices such as self-induced vomiting, abuse of diuretics or excessive exercise - began to surface. At 5-foot-7, she weighed 115 pounds on a good day, Connie said.
Karen suffered from seizures about a year before her death, Connie said. The seizures caused a loss of hand-eye coordination and speech.
"Losing her speech and hand-eye coordination was an extraordinary setback for a woman who lived by her hand-eye coordination," Connie said. "But she worked hard and slowly she was getting it back."
In the end, the bulimia won, and Karen died in her Baltimore home.
In addition to the tribute, the Beims family plans to create a scholarship in Karen's name. Currently, family members are exploring whether to create a foundation and give the scholarships to students regardless of the school they are attending, or if they should provide the scholarship through a school foundation, Connie said.
To raise money for the scholarship, they plan to make silk screens of Karen's original works to sell, Connie said.
As one of the stipulations for an $80,000 donation to the school to upgrade the equipment in the sculpture lab and enhance community outreach, the anonymous donor asked that something be done in Karen Beims' name.
As a result, a national juried sculpture show, also at the request of the donor, will go up in August, and the Kari Beims Sculpture Award - a $2,000 prize for the Best in the Show - will be presented Sept. 6 at Prince George's Community College.