I
n the course of eight years she’s sold over 500 masks
on Etsy. The woman is prolific and humble, talks more
about her students and clients than she does about herself.
She says she’s never had a bad client. And she really loves
teaching. It seems the thing she loves to hear most from
students sums up as “I always said I couldn’t do this but I
think I’m gonna try now.”
It’s hard to convince someone that what they made is
“good” if they believe it is bad, or even below-standard.
It’s hard to make a human being believe that you’re being
truthful when you say you like it. She tells of walking
around the classroom while students work and invariably
someone sees her coming and hunches over their desk
in shame. When she approaches to see if they need
help, they reveal an exquisite portrait, despairing at how
flawed it is, when in Annie’s self-described obsessive
compulsive eyes she’s blown away by their success. Or
when sculpting leather orchids from a stencil, apparently
everyone’s dubious while they’re working on the flat part.
“There’s one part of the class where I have them squeeze
this backwards and while you’re holding that squeeze
this forward and then push it up at a ninety degree angle
and then pull the end out … I have to show each person
individually. Every time. Because they can’t see it. I say
‘Trust me. I know it looks like a glob right now. But it’s
about to look really cool.’ They’re all looking at theirs
and thinking I don’t think it looks right. ‘Trust me, we’re
about to do the last thing and that’s what will make it look
like a flower.’ And then we do that final move, that final
bend, and they all say, ‘Oh! It does look good!’” Her eyes
are alight with pride in her students’ work.
To take a leather crafting class from Annie, you can go to
the website of Elktracks Studio run by Jim Linnell in Texas
(elktracksstudio.com) where she teaches online video classes.
If you are Spokane local you should also know she teaches a
few times a year at Tandy Leather on North Monroe. Her next
class will be on raven masks and will start in mid-October;
visit tandyleather.com/en/leathercraft-classes for updates.
annielibertini.com
tandyleather.com
etsy.com/shop/libertiniarts
July | August 2019
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