Letitia Huckaby

Letitia Huckaby considers herself a photographer who works in hybrid media. Specifically, she has been printing her images onto vintage and contemporary fabrics and hand sewing them into original quilts, framed quilt tops and dresses. The work is an exploration of her faith, family history and African-American heritage. After studying and gaining degrees in both journalism and photography some of my first works were naturally photojournalistic. A voyeur documenting the lives of other’s, but with the loss of her father, she became interested in doing more personal work. For the first time she turned the camera on herself, and her family. As a child, her mother often told her stories from her early childhood in the back woods of Louisiana. She can remember tales of milking cows before dawn, swimming in ponds with snakes and riding hogs like horses. Her mother also said that her family grew, raised or made everything they needed except flour. They “store bought” their flour, and her grandmother used the cotton sacks the flour came in to make new dresses for the girls.  This story made a huge impression on Letitia.  What strength and creativity! This body of work, "Flour," is a tribute to the strength and creativity of several generations of women, and the men around them, who out of craftiness and necessity were and still are able to raise their families up against constant challenges, all the while thanking God.