Levine - "Black Shoe Bag" Realistic earthenware sculpture of a black shoe bag with a real zipper

Marilyn Levine • American: 1935-2005

Black Shoe Bag • Earthenware with Real Zipper 6-1/2” x 13-1/2” x 6-1/2"”

Marilyn Levine wanted you to think about other people’s lives. She wanted your mind to wander over imagined events and feelings. The tool she chose to kick-start your imagination was clay. Or rather it was clay expertly manipulated, stained and fired to look like leather. From the time she left her native western Canada and migrated to Oakland, California, Marilyn Levine did little else but create clay sculptures made to look like leather or canvas. She saw old leather objects as metaphors for the passage of time and the scars of life, so used her tools and kiln the way a storyteller uses paper and pictures.

Once a New York ceramics dealer told people her work fit neatly into the super-realist movement in painting and sculpture. Levine thought he missed the mark completely. “I don’t think of myself belonging to any group. I think what I do is probably related to the kind of isolated childhood I had.” Levine made hyper-realistic clay sculptures because she didn’t want people thinking about her. Rather she wanted people to think about someone else they could never really know. A man whose shoes were kept in an old zippered leather bag. A boy who left his leather jacket carelessly hung on a wooden peg. A worker who’d worn holes in the toes of his work boots. Marilyn Levine wanted us to ask what their lives were like at a particular moment in time.

(story continues below break)

INTERESTING STORIES FROM OUR SPONSORS

levine_marilyn_pouch_ceramicleather_1982_full_groot_collection_tmp_11-2016_2.jpg

Levine was an unlikely sculptor. A child of the Alberta plains, she was born in the small town of Medicine Hat, a place Rudyard Kipling once described as having “all hell for a basement” due to its large natural gas fields. Marilyn Levine never took a real art class until she filled some time while studying Chemistry at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. By the time she earned her Master of Fine Arts rom the University of California, Berkeley, she had finally figured out the art world and soon was recognized as one of ceramics leading lights.

But she never outgrew the sense of isolation she felt growing up on the plains of western Canada,, or the urge to wonder about other people’s lives in far away places.

Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection • Purchased in Memory of Edward & Rosa J. Langenbach 85.4

4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art

1.
“Originally trained as a chemist, she developed a way to embed nylon fibers into her clay allowing her to create the illusion of thin leather.”

2.
“She saw old leather objects as a metaphor for the passage of time and the scars of life.”

3.
“She often gave her pieces a fictitious person’s name so that the viewer would imagine what the person’s life was like at a particular moment in time.”

4.
“She was accepted to the University of California Berkeley graduate program only because an acquaintance on staff hid her portfolio, knowing it would be rejected. That’s what friends are for.”

Levine Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.

1935

Born Marilyn Hayes in Medicine Hat, Alberta Canada. Her father worked as an engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Since only one wage earner was allowed per Canadian family during the Depression, her mother was forced to give up her job as a schoolteacher.

1936

The family moved to Edmonton where her father became an executive for a meat-packing company.

1939

The family moved again as her father was promoted and relocated to Calgary. She attended public schools in Calgary and lived most of her formative years there. Although her parents dabbled in art, she never took a real art class until post-graduate studies in Regina, Saskatchewan.

1945

She always felt her parents wanted a son and treated her as a bit of a tomboy. When she was 10 years old they finally adopted a boy who became her beloved brother, Bob.

1953-59

Attended the University of Alberta back in Edmonton where she received a Bachelor degree in 1957 and a Master of Science degree in 1959.

1960

Now married to Sydney Levine, the pair relocated to Regina, Saskatchewan, where Sydney was a professor. Marilyn was not allowed to teach at the university due to rules concerning nepotism. She also could not find work as a chemist, so began auditing courses in drawing, painting, art history and pottery at the Regina campus of the University of Saskatchewan. She also taught sporadic Chemistry courses at Campion College in Regina.

1964

Gave up chemistry and became a full-time arts student at the Regina campus of the University of Saskatchewan.

1969

Her husband had to choose between pursuing teaching positions in Austin, Texas, and Berkeley, California. They chose Berkeley as Marilyn was finally accepted at the Graduate Sculpture Program at the University of California. Years later she found out she was accepted after a professor she knew hid her portfolio knowing she would not be accepted if the selectors saw it.

1970

Her chemistry background came in handy when she created a process using nylon fibers in her clay allowing her to create layers as thin as leather without cracking. Her Funk Sculptures were colorful, but she never really achieved the “funkiness” she was looking for.

1971

Returned to the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, to teach ceramics and pottery. By 1973, recently separated from her husband, she took a position with the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. However she found Salt Lake City a poor match for her personality and soon moved back to Berkeley where she left academia and pursued life as a full-time artist.

1973

Had her first New York show at the Bernard Danenberg Gallery. She also won a medal from the International Academy of Ceramics, the first major recognition of her increasingly high profile in the ceramic arts.

1976

Awarded National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Artists Fellowship Grant.

1978

Awarded National Endowment for the Arts, Master Craftsmen Apprenticeship Grant.

Mid-1990s

Began to revisit her earlier Funk styles with a series of ceramic mugs that appear to be made from colorful leather sneakers with laces.

1998

A retrospective of her work was exhibited at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan.

2005

Marilyn Levine died at her home in Oakland, California. The cause was melanoma. She was survived by John Allen, her partner of 25 years, and her younger brother, Robert Hayes of Calgary.