Familiarity is not the same as knowing.
We can spend years beside someone, hear the same stories at every family gathering, and still know so little about the life they’ve lived.
Sometimes all it takes is a different question.
Not “Tell me about your life.” But “Where did you get that old suitcase?”
And suddenly, there’s a story we haven’t heard before
The ordinary things are often the most interesting.
A music player long out of date. A pair of shoes worn flat. A suitcase with a broken wheel.
We keep things for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes we don’t even remember why until someone asks. And often, what we discover has very little to do with the object itself.
A suitcase becomes a story about leaving home. A recipe becomes a memory of someone we miss. An old piece of jewelry reminds us of the hands that wore it before ours.
The object gives us somewhere to begin.
Hello, I’m Kristiann.
I’ve always loved getting lost in other people’s stories.
Once, on an overnight flight, I noticed that the woman beside me seemed perfectly comfortable while everyone else was still shifting around in their seats. I asked her how she managed it.
She told me she’d been traveling so much that airplanes had begun to feel more familiar than anywhere else.
That small exchange led to a conversation about her family, the places she’d lived, her hopes, and the things she worried about. All because I’d wondered how she got comfortable in an airplane seat.
I still think about conversations like that.
My favorite part is often the pause before someone answers. That moment when a familiar question leads somewhere unexpected, and they remember something they haven’t thought about in years.
Provenance & You grew out of that curiosity, and a wish to give those stories a place to live.
A personal approach, from beginning to end.
I begin by listening. The conversations are relaxed, the writing is considered, and each story is shaped around the person who tells it.
I believe the details matter. The familiar phrases. The small memories. The things someone says almost in passing, without realizing how much they reveal. These are often the parts of a story we come back to.
I also believe people should have a say in how their lives are remembered. That’s why each storyteller has the opportunity to read, correct, and approve their stories before anything is printed.
Something worth keeping.
A book is a small thing, really. But it can hold a voice, a memory, a story someone didn’t know they needed to hear. And sometimes it can help us see the people we love a little differently. That’s the work I’m interested in.
KristiannFounder, Provenance & You