'Speaking of the Arts': Huckleberry Starnes

May 17th, 2022

Huckleberry Starnes is a sculptor and product designer living in Atlanta. However, he’s lately pivoted to the medium of vintage-inspired embroidery, a shift he undertook during the pandemic.

“I was doing some research on a bowling shirt that I was curious about, and … I realized that prior to computers doing all our embroidery, there was actually a person sitting at a hand-controlled machine that was manually stitching all of these designs,” Starnes explains.

Now an expert on using antique hand-guided embroidery machines (the two in his studio are over 100 years old), Starnes produces custom-embroidered garments and patches. He draws his inspiration from everyday things but with a special eye for vintage and antique styles and paraphernalia.

Explaining this fascination, Starnes says, “There’s something so pleasing about the simplicity of these products, partially because of manufacturing techniques, partially because of materials. ‘Form follows function’ was something that was much more important in the past.”

Art and apparel by Huckleberry Starnes can be found at his website, www.huckmade.com.