Libby Hintz started exploring the world of mosaic art in 2005. She was given a gift certificate to a local art community school and chose to take a mosaic class. She remembered growing up with the knowledge that her parents had made a coffee table with vitreous glass tile and was always intrigued how they did that. After the first class, Libby had so many questions and started looking for answers. She came upon a mosaic art Yahoo group where she could ask questions and learned of Sonia King and the new book (Mosaic Techniques and Traditions) she had recently published. Upon reading the book she discovered SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists) and began attending the conferences in 2009. Libby’s sister Michele suggested she make some belt buckles and sell them with her new found knowledge. Over the next 5 years Libby made over 700 individual patterns of belt buckles and sold them at shows in homes and in stores in New York City, Wayland, Massachusetts and Sayville, New York. She sees the belt buckles as the precursor or maquettes to the art she’s making now.
After having spent several years taking classes and experimenting with all types of materials Libby asked herself one day, what did she want to make, what would make her happy to sit down and make every day. She remembered the joy and peace she felt as a young girl who would make designs with her markers. Libby wondered if she could experience those same feelings using the materials and techniques she had learned along the way from her mosaic classes. She remembered taking a class with Laurel Skye who showed her patterns and textures and how a variety of materials could be used in her art. Libby remembered the class she took with Sharra Frank who introduced her to Apoxie Sculpt and how to run a line of beads in the adhesive and then pull the string out, leaving the beads in place. Laurie Mika introduced her to polymer clay: how to form it, shape it, embed things in it, paint it, texturize it and make tiles out of the clay. A new path was taken born out of the thought to replicate the feeling she had when she would get lost in a big piece of paper and a new set of markers. She wanted to immerse herself in designs, textures, patterns using strings of beads, individual beads of all shapes and sizes and polymer clay slabs. Libby has been playing and experimenting with beads and polymer clay and how each can be manipulated to create the patterns, textures and designs that make Libby happy.
