Career highlights for Stephen Beal include:

• The Lillian Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber Art. 2008. Presented at the biennial conference of the Textile Society of America, this international award supports the work of a contemporary fiber artist.
• Pricked: Extreme Embroidery. 2007–2008. Two Beal canvases, The Periodic Table of the Artist’s Colors and Vincent Tries on Rembrandt’s Hats, appeared in this exhibit of contemporary fiber art at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. Forty-three international fiber artists took part, and The Periodic Table of the Artist’s Colors was a unanimous acceptance by the museum’s collections committee for the permanent collection.
• Major reviews of Pricked that reference Beal’s work appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the British online art journal Studio International, and Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot (Winter 2008).
• A portfolio of his work and his story “Needlepoint” appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Fiberarts. Portfolios of his work and interviews have appeared in the French magazine De fil en aiguille and Surface Design Journal.

• In addition to the Museum of Arts and Design, collections that include his work are those of Alex and Camille Cook of Friends of Fiber Art International, the Textile Traces Collection, and private collections in Manhattan, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, the Midwest, Colorado, Nova Scotia, and Beijing.
• Men of the Cloth. 1999–2001. Beal was curator for and one of 33 artists represented in this exhibit that traveled the United States. The exhibit originated at the Loveland Museum and Gallery in Loveland, Colorado, home to Interweave Press who published his first poetry collection, The Very Stuff, and for whose publications he has served as copy editor.
• Director’s Choice Award, Council of American Embroiderers. 1990.
• Arthur Baer Competition, Beverly Art Center, Chicago. 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1988, 1987, 1985, 1984, 1981, 1980, 1979. Juried exhibit, all-media, all-Chicago. Four honorable mentions. Beal feels it was an honor to be included in these exhibits because the prospectus specifically excluded needlework. Several judges said they thought he did paintings. In 1986 the Beverly Art Center mounted his first one-man show.