Jill Levene

309-251-2680

jilllevene@hotmail.com

Instagram @ji.ll327

Warren

Jill is from Warren and offers a fabric mural residency.

Jill S. Levene is an artist-printmaker who is retired from commercial graphic design, marketing, and being a cooperative business outreach coordinator. She is now self-employed as a printmaker, creating and selling usable fabrics such as kitchen towels, aprons, napkins, infant swaddles, bandanas, ornaments, and garden flags, as well as instructing others in the art of block printing on fabric and paper. She also creates and markets Inklings — pen and ink sketches for note cards as well as framed original art. Her non-commercial interests are creating historical murals and exhibiting her work in art shows around the northwest Minnesota region. Today, Jill’s work integrates human and natural history through functional art, her creations bear the fruit of a life lived creatively.

Jill has 15 years experience teaching art, including teaching Art in the Park in East Grand Forks for many years, being an Artist/Instructor for numerous programs, such as the summer reading program, Winter Family event, and the Letterboxing Community event at East Grand Forks’s Campbell Library, private art tutoring, and being an invited artist for The Peregrine Project at Tettegouche State Park. Some of her Artist in Residences with fabric murals include creating Riviere Rouge du Nord in East Grand Forks and Sisu at the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center.

She grew up always knowing she would be an artist. It was that conviction which guided her, the middle child of three sisters, through grade school, high school, and college, where she majored in graphic design. At each level she pursued every creative opportunity offered in summer schools, art camps, exhibits, shows, and museums as her passion grew and blossomed. 

Fabric Mural with

Linoleum Block Elements

Overview of Residency:
In this ten-day interactive residency, students will design a small 20“ X 20” fabric mural base representing the prairie, lakes, rolling land, wildlife and more, capturing in fabric and block prints where they live and play. We will build the base using re-purposed fabric scrapes and heat & bond iron on adhesive. Step two, students will design and carve 3-5 simple linoleum (easy carve material) blocks, relevant to the fabric mural base such as wildlife, people and objects, that are their life. Our final step will involve printing their carved blocks on the fabric base to complete the story. Invest yourself in the world and the space you occupy because “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” Helen Keller

Age/Grade level: 7th-12th grade

Length of residency: 10-12 days

Number of Sessions: 10-12 sessions working with the same group of students for the entire residency.

Maximum group Size: 12-14 students.

* Please provide an adult for students with special needs.

10 Sessions

Session 1: Review and discuss steps and details, start fabric base design.

Session 2: Finish designs, cut patterns, choose fabrics, create fabric base.

Session 3: Cut out fabric elements, iron on (attach) to fabric base.

Session 4: Cut out fabric elements, iron on (attach) to fabric base.

Session 5: Finish fabric base, start linoleum block designs.

Session 6: Design and start carving linoleum blocks.

Session 7: Carving day.

Session 8: Carving day.

Session 9: Complete carving, start printing on fabric base.

Session 10: Complete printing on fabric base.

Supply List

Artist will supply:

20” X 20” fabric base material, finished and ready for display, fabric ink, miscellaneous fabric scrapes, heat & bond, tracing paper, easy-carve carving material, carving tools, ink brayers, plexiglass or old phone books to roll out ink, rags for cleanup, dowel rod and rope for displaying final art.

School may be asked to supply:

Paper towels, plain paper for sketching designs and making patterns, pencils, tape, sharp fabric scissors, paper scissors, erasers, rulers, irons (3) and ironing board, or protected surface for ironing, ink brayers, art aprons, water & sink for cleanup.

End Product

 20” X 20” unique finished fabric mural, created entirely by the student.

Public Event

1. The school hosts an art reception at the close of the residency project.

2. Invite local newspaper reporter, during the residency to capture candid “work in progress” images as well as during the reception.

3. Display art in the school hallway, library or other high traffic area.

4. The art is on permanent display in the school, or another public location in town. Perhaps a bank, medical office, or other professional businesses.

5. Post on social media and school website.

6. Students take possession of their finished art.

Program Statement

1. Our success will be the students’ personal artistic contributions, captured indelibly in fabric and print. Through the residency students will use their artistic skills to foster a greater appreciation for the interconnectedness of the land, its people and the world. As an artist, it would be my privilege to share the countless complexities of the land and its natural residents with the students, to help and encourage them to see the world that surrounds them. 

2. An artist continually grows, reaches, and experiments, gleaning inspiration from a diverse array of sources and places including, yet never limited to, artists, colleagues, friends and family, both past and present, but also to the phenological world, its occupants, its natural history, its future, and its scientists, as well. An artist continually thinks about art and about creating art. They dream about their current work as well as the next piece, and then the next…with each new piece of art fashioned from and built upon existing art inspired by something seen, something heard, and something learned. 

Each residency is unique, I am very flexible and happy to modify the project to fit individual needs.

If you are interested in a residency for your school, please contact Jill at

jilllevene@hotmail.com or 309-251-2680

To see more creativeness visit Instagram: ji.ll327