Marilyn Levine / Texture in Clay

Mini Biography
Marilyn Levine was born in Alberta, Canada in 1935. She started out interested in Chemistry, but when she couldn’t find work as a chemist she taught college and took extra art classes while teaching. She then went back to college to study sculpture.
She and her husband moved to California to attend college. Her work started showing up in shows soon after. Levine liked to combine stoneware (slip clay) with nylon fiber to create images that looked like leather instead of clay. She made leather looking jackets, baseball mitts, golf bags, briefcases, and handbags. Levine also taught ceramics in Utah and California. She passed away in 2005.

Tie In to Project
Levine’s clay artworks tricked the eye by using texture techniques to make them look like leather. Everything has texture your hair is soft, the sidewalk is rough. To make art materials like clay or paint, which are usually smooth to look like hair or the sidewalk texture has to be created.

Project
Make a tile of clay. Roll a ball out with a rolling pin and cut squares with a cookie cutter or by hand with a knife. Push and pinch with you fingers, press clay on clay, impress on the clay with tools to fill the tile with texture. Dry and fire.

Materials
Ball of clay per person
Rolling pin
Square or Circle cookie cutter
Clay tools
Plastic knifes, forks, spoons, other various found objects

Variations
Create an abstract 3D form with clay instead of rolling it out. Create textures all around the abstract form.

Follow up
After fired close your eyes and rub your fingers lightly over the tiles. See if they can find a smooth spot, a rough spot, a sharp spot, a soft spot, etc.