Nuala Libertini is just under two-and-a-half years old and has already tried her hand at cooking, leather work, polishing stones, and the harmonica. Her current mediums of choice are crayons, markers (permanent ones if mom isn’t looking) and playdough. She enjoys meeting new people and smiles when her dad dons a horned mask because she, like her parents, is a fan of invention. “She’s definitely a combination of the two of us,” says Nuala’s mother and artist Annie Libertini.

Annie is inquisitive and inspired by mythology, fairytales, history and the natural world, and she liberates herself through an array of mediums, creating stunning works of art. “For as long as I can remember I’ve been drawing, painting, gluing and putting things together out of whatever material I could find,” she says. “It’s my guaranteed path out of whatever frustration, depression, or confusion I run into in other parts of my life.”

Annie, 36, grew up in Spokane. At Ferris High School, she took every available art class and played the violin. She went on to the Cleveland Institute of Art and received her BFA in painting in 2005 and then a Master’s of Library Science from Simmons College in Boston in 2008. She sang and played the fiddle in an Irish punk band called the Swaggerin’ Growlers as well as in Americana and Bluegrass bands. She also plays the accordion and a tin whistle.

Just out of the art institute, she was offered a lucrative job creating murals in a high-end home in Ohio. The work took six months to complete and included a forest, blue skies, hawks, a village in the distance and some of its inhabitants, and a flowing river.

As a child, she made masks out of paper, becoming anyone or anything she pleased. In college, Annie’s roommate purchased all the materials to make a leather mask for Halloween and then gave it all to Annie, who also made a mask. She hasn’t stopped since. Combining her painting background with the pliable material, she creates leaves, feathers, fur, beaks, and horns, worthy of a time when masks were worn in castles by lords and ladies dressed in satin and velvet or by warriors protecting the kingdom in embellished headwear. They are mythical creatures, animals, birds, living foliage or the bark of a tree skillfully formed, carved, and dyed until there is no separation between a dream and reality. Worn or hung on the wall, her leather pieces are liberators of the imagination.

Her masks have been purchased and worn all over the world and have been featured in film and television. Her skills earned her regular work on the locally filmed television series Z Nation for which she has made masks, costume embellishments, set décor, and more, using her inventive nature to tackle a last minute project without a reference point, diving into the task with confidence and gusto like her husband Michael, who she met on a blind date in 2012, tends to live.

A sculptor and musician, Michael, whom was born with a bad heart valve and has gone through two heart surgeries, seems to live without fear of being himself, often dressing as fantastic characters right out of a fantasy or steampunk graphic novel. He grew up in the Hillyard area, joking that his hooligan roots run deep. His father was a builder (the couple currently lives in the house Michael’s father and grandfather built) and tools are no stranger to Michael. His mother exposed him to art, including the works of Rodin and Camille Claudel. He created his first sculpture in plaster in his teens and then moved to stone using chisels, hammers, grinders, files and polishers. “When I walk into a quarry, I see a rock and know what’s in it,” he says. A hearing instrument specialist by day, he also plays the bass and drums and cooks like a pro. 

Together, the couple brandish tools that create beauty in an often grey world and their future looks bright; Annie has been called upon to travel and teach leatherwork, and they plan on building working studios and a much larger kitchen for their future endeavors—and where Nuala will, no doubt, come up with some inventions of her own. annielibertini.com