Kinfolk Team

Sedrick Huckaby, Board President

Sedrick Huckaby was born in 1975 in Fort Worth, Texas. His formal education in art started at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, where he studied with two excellent painters–Ron Tomlinson and Jack Barnett. He then transferred to Boston University (BFA, 1997), where he received extensive academic training in studio art. For graduate studies, he went to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut (MFA, 1999). There he immersed himself in the notion that “art is about ideas” and expanded his conceptual horizons in art and art history.

With a Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship and an Alice Kimball English Traveling Fellowship, Sedrick was able to explore France, Italy, and Spain for two years. During this time in Europe, he “came to appreciate the Old Masters” and the difference in the social conditions of art production between the present and the past. After his European residency, Huckaby settled in his hometown where he continues to make art.

Sedrick’s journey in art has included residencies at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center in Massachusetts, the Skowhegan School of painting and sculpture in Maine, Brandywine workshop in Philadelphia, and Art For Change in New Deli, India. He has also been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including a Guggenheim award, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and a Lewis Comfort Tiffany Award. In 2018, he was named the Texas State Artist for 2018, and was a finalist in the 2016 and 2019 Outwin Boochever Competition Exhibition administered by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

In 2022 his work was included in the group exhibitions We Are Family at New York Academy of Art, Round 54: Southern Survey Biennial at Project Row Houses in Houston, and Kinship at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. During the summer of 2022, he participated in a Joan Mitchell residency in New Orleans, LA. As a Fulbright Scholar, from February through May 2023, Sedrick will be in Mexico’s Coahuila State to make portraits of the Mascogos community, descendants of Afro-Seminoles who settled in Mexico to escape persecution in the United States. Sedrick is currently represented by Philip Martin Gallery in Los Angeles, CA and Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas, TX.

Sedrick is married to artist Letitia Huckaby and is the father of three children, Rising Sun, Halle Lujah, and Rhema Rain.

Letitia Huckaby holds an MFA in Photography from the University of North Texas (2010), a BFA in Photography from the University of Boston at Lesley (2001), and a BA in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma at Norman (1994). Her work is rooted in faith, family and legacy, and acts as a time capsule for the African-American experience. Letitia investigates the relationship between the past and the present, and whether things have changed or remain the same. History is built into her work, both through process and physical materials. A photographer at heart, each of Letitia’s works starts with an image and pushes the boundaries of photography as it comes to fruition. Using a traditional practice in untraditional ways with the goal of contributing to a new visual language.

Letitia has exhibited at Phillips New York, the Tyler Museum of Art, The Studio School of Harlem, Renaissance Fine Art in Harlem curated by Deborah Willis, PhD, The McKenna Museum in New Orleans, the Camden Palace Hotel in Cork City, Ireland, and the Texas Biennial at Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum. Her work is included in several prestigious collections; the Library of Congress, the McNay Art Museum, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, and the Samella Lewis Contemporary Art Collection at Scripps College in Claremont, California. She was a featured artist in MAP2020: The Further We Roll, The More We Gain at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and State of the Art 2020 at The Momentary and Crystal Bridges Museum, both opened in the spring of 2020.

In 2022, her work was featured in solo exhibitions, Letitia Huckaby: Koinonia, at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio and Bitter Waters Sweet at Art League Houston. She also received the Texas Artist of the Year Award from Art League Houston. In 2023, her work will be included in the group exhibition Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth.

Letitia is married to artist Sedrick Huckaby and is the mother of three children, Rising Sun, Halle Lujah, and Rhema Rain.

A longtime Fort Worth resident, Jessica Fuentes is an artist, educator, community advocate, and author. She holds an MA in Art Education from the University of North Texas (2013) and a BA in Art & Performance from the University of Texas at Dallas (2004). Her series, “My Only Homeland,” was featured in Deep Red Press (2018). During the 2019-20 academic year, she was an Artist-in-Residence at Tarrant County College South Campus. In 2021, her work was included in the temporary public art exhibition, New Stories: New Futures curated by Dr. Lauren Cross.

As an art educator with over fifteen years of experience, Fuentes has taught learners of all ages in classrooms, higher education, and museums. She worked at the Dallas Museum of Art as Manager of Gallery Interpretation & the Center for Creative Connections and at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art as Manager of School & Community Outreach. In these roles she was instrumental in developing initiatives in which museums partnered with local artists to showcase their art and expertise through educational programming. She serves on the board of Make Art with Purpose (MAP) and on the Education Planning Committee for the Smithsonian Latino Center in Washington, D.C.

Her first peer-reviewed publication, The Need for Educators of Color in K-12 Museum Tours, appeared in the Journal of Museum Education (June 2021). Jessica has also authored a chapter titled Representation Matters: Diversifying School Tour Curriculum in the book, “Creating Meaningful Museum Experiences for K-12 Audiences: how to Connect with Teachers and Students,” edited by Tara Young.