Letitia Huckaby’s “This Same Dusty Road” exhibit at the LSU Museum of Art is a grand showing of a Black Louisianan experience with qualities making it relatable to many.
I visited the exhibit with my feminist art and theory class. We were studying multimedia artworks with an emphasis on textile work, because they are mainly produced by women and not as regarded in the high art world. Huckaby’s exhibit in Downtown Baton Rouge fit the information we were covering in class perfectly.
The first piece visible upon entering the museum is a quilt that has images of cotton sewn into it. There are also images of Huckaby standing behind a cotton sheet with the sun, creating a silhouette. The sheet does not serve as a barrier between the viewer and subject but is a representation of Huckaby’s spirituality. “Quilt #2” is a piece that addresses the southern Black’s relationship with cotton in multiple ways.
“Madear” has the energy of an old master painting. It is such an intimate scene with the reflection in the window adding another layer for us to take in.
“I was shooting through the glass so you get a reflection of the outside and you can see inside, and the house you see reflected in the glass, that’s her mother’s house, my great-grandmother’s house,” Huckaby said.
Now we have this piece where the subject is looking away from you as you are staring at her through glass. The window is not a barrier between you and the subject, but a way to look into her history. This piece is easily my favorite. Huckaby informed me that the museum has decided to keep “Madear” for its collection.
The “East Feliciana Altarpiece” is a collage of large photos from two scenes along the LA-19 highway with Huckaby’s grandmother at the center of it all. The scenes to both sides of the center piece are memorable landmarks on the way back to Huckaby’s grandmother’s house. A oval image of a curtain from her grandmother’s house is placed above the center photo and seems to serve as a crown jewel for the altarpiece.
A quilt about Huckaby’s father was the most sentimental piece in the museum. His obituary was featured in the middle of the quilt. He passed away from complications with diabetes, and there is imagery of microscopic tissue damaged by diabetes. Cotton makes another appearance in the form of a ravaged cotton field. Huckaby used the field as a comparison to how the disease attacks the body.
One of the textiles that was hanging from a clothesline in the center of the room was another representation of her dad’s side of the family. It was a quilt top made by her grandmother’s
stepmother.
“I never met her, so for me it was really like a conversation between artists across time,” Huckaby said.
This is an ode to the importance of textile works of art. They are pieces that can be passed down and take on a new shape and meaning. From her son in another quilt to her grandmother’s stepmother in this quilt top, the entire collection spans five generations.
Huckaby had worked in documentary photography before creating these pieces but documenting this journey has an obvious sentimental value for the artist.
“I turned the camera on myself after my father passed. It might’ve been a little bit of therapy for me to tell my family’s story through the language that I work with, which is my camera,” Huckaby said.
She took these personal stories from her life and made them into relatable pieces.
You would not normally encounter these locations and these people in a high art space. Looking at the “This Same Dusty Road” exhibition is an example that deserving to belong in a high art space has nothing to do with the subjects and everything to do with inequities in the art world. These are stories rich in culture and joy that need to be told, and I believe presenting personal experience that others can relate to is the best way to do so.
“It just makes me think, especially with everything that happened in the last couple years with race relations, about the importance of continuing to tell our stories, value our culture and just cherish each other,” Huckaby closed.
The exhibition closed on March 14, but all of the pieces can be seen on the Huckaby Studios website.
