Traits: A Reflection on Family
Photographic Book by Bethany Hicks
Traits is a search for comfort found in lineage, identity, and origin. Through exploring the lineage of my family, I find myself on a continuous and curious odyssey tracing the physical traits and behaviors of my ancestors. My mother makes faces like my grandmother and my brother like my mother. The hard evidence was in the hundreds of printed film images that sat in a box that tell the stories of and created by my family. The images in this series are comparisons from many places and times. The addition of portraits I took accompanied by the found images allow me to become an active participant in this photographic heritage. I discovered not only patterns of my family, but also in humanity; such as community, rites of passage, the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next, and the inherent desire to keep memories for years to come.
Traits is Bethany's second photo book. It was created in April 2017 at the Delaware College of Art and Design
