portrait

Jackson Huckaby is a current student of Napa Valley College’s Digital Design Graphics Technology program, a graduate of the Welding Technology program, and recipient of Arts Council Napa Valley’s Student of the Month award for October 2024. Jackson has 1 year of experience with Autodesk AutoCAD, 5 months of experience with Autodesk Inventor, and 2 years of experience with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Jackson hopes to use the experiences gained so far along with those he is yet to learn to find a niche for himself involving sustainable design and fabrication practices. Out of all of the parts of the design process, Jackson finds the most fulfillment in the refinement stage, the building of clarity and purpose in the design is always wonderful to experience.

I have been inspired by many people and projects from many different times and places, but a significant source of inspiration has always been the creative works of my family members. On my mother’s side, my grandfather did woodworking, carving, and painting. On my father’s side, my grandfather did some illustration for a greeting card company he started with a friend, along with a few personal projects. My mother did some costuming for music videos and advertisements in the 1990s. Seeing all this wonderful work makes it feel like I have a duty to carry it forward, and I will happily oblige in doing so.

In my spare time, I like listening to music, hiking, making alterations to clothing, tinkering with electronics and software, thrifting, furniture design, and digital illustration. A recent skill that I have been developing has been leatherworking, thanks to a project started by an urgent need for a way to keep an umbrella on my person hands-free. Iterations upon this design have become so much simpler as time goes on, starting with the involvement of an oversized spring and some considerations involving lacing, and now the design has been simplified to just three parallel slots. It’s amazing how design elements can be distilled down like this.