Riley Elizabeth Beard
I grew up in a home that valued invention, intuition, and intimacy, with a playful spirit that never took life too seriously. I value relationships and connection above all else. I’m deeply drawn to creating images of the human experience — quiet evidence meant to last for generations.
I’ve always been making things. I lose myself in the process, becoming light and weightless, I look for beauty in the mundane, approach my work with hope, and try new things even when they might fail.
I move through life with a deep appreciation for sensory experience — savoring food, music, and nature, and allowing that attentiveness to inform how I see and create. Creating and serving others are inseparable for me; they sit at the center of how I live and work.
HEART
The Story Behind The Brand
My grandfather, Kenneth Beard was a man who fell in love with studying genealogy. He was a husband, a father, and a computer engineer.
In his free time he spent hours studying and accumulating details of our family history. He compiled information and has records of our families lives, their stories, paired with old photographs.
One of the ways he studied our family line was with a quarterly public newsletter called, Traces. Traces was first published by the South Central Kentucky Genealogical Society in 1973. This newsletter detailed public history, photographs, and genealogies. Births, deaths, marriages.
In 2016, they changed the name of this publication and stopped running print. Therefore it is my intention to carry on the legacy of family, and my grandfather's work, in my own way. Catered towards my passion, and gifts.
Telling stories with images.
The intention behind Traces is to create imagery that in its authenticity, helps us to understand the past, present and future.
Photographs are important, they hold people.
When my father passed I held closely to the images I had of him.
Andy was a sweet man. I can remember. But when I forget and need reminding, I have photographs of him. Of us together.
And when I look at them
I can tell he adored me, just by the way he looked at me.
It’s like I have proof of his love for me.
Photographs leave traces of our love.