Rivers and Roads

Owners Adam and Gracie Dillon-Moore.

~story and photos by Chrissy Alspaugh

The first step into Nashville’s new Rivers and Roads LLC shop prompts pause, as customers take in the colorful, calming visual potpourri they’ve walked into.

Walls brim with carefully staged ceramics, hand-crafted soaps, woven wool rugs and handbags, antique cameras turned into lamps, tea, jewelry, honey, and an exhibit of beeswax candles that range from elegant to eccentric.

Owners Adam and Gracie Dillon-Moore have carefully filled the store with all-natural, one-ofa-kind, artisan-made delights to suit any budget.

The shop’s sweet, fresh aroma is hard to place.

“It’s nothing,” Adam chuckles. “Most of our world is so flooded with synthetic fragrances and chemicals, it’s surprising to walk into a space where the scent is literally nothing.”

While the scent may be “nothing” more than plant-based products throughout, the shop means everything to a couple who decided two years ago to create a life for their family that was meaningful, sustainable, conscious, and creative.

It’s not far from the life Gracie watched her father, Bill Dillon, lead while running Nashville’s leathersmith shop when she was a child.

She didn’t realize until he died in 2021 that the most important gift he ever gave her was the stubbornness to prioritize creativity over materialism.

The couple—hovering barely on either side of their 40th birthdays—quit the corporate world, sold their Tennessee home, and moved with their three young children into Gracie’s mother’s Bloomington basement.

Determination to do life a new way was their fuel.

Having met years before in the natural foods industry, Adam and Gracie sought to pursue their passion for helping others live healthier lives.

The idea of creating beeswax candles came by accident, while Gracie searched for candles to burn with their Yule log in 2021. Frustrated by not finding affordable products whose suppliers were transparent about their production and ingredients, Gracie took the beeswax into her own hands.

Literally.

“Beeswax is an absolute mess,” she said, shaking her head, laughing. “It’s very challenging and finicky. It has to be at just the right temperature, in just the right environment, poured at just the right ratio. I tried it a few months and knew it was not for me.

“But Adam? He tried it the first time, and it worked great.”

A little voice in the back of Gracie’s head nagged her about how much she’d loved watching the potter next door to her father’s leather shop when she was a little girl. She said watching him throw pots was “pure magic.” In fact, Gracie took a pottery class when she was 25 and loved that, too.

So, while her husband began spending late nights reading candle forums in bed, Gracie soon could be found over in the corner, throwing pots on her wheel, or testing glazes on votive plates. Many of her father’s old leather-working tools found their second career in Gracie’s hands, giving her ceramics a unique twist.

After a lot of trial and error, she eventually signed up to try selling her ceramics in a craft market.

“I was so nervous in the days leading up to it, I really didn’t think I could go,” Gracie said, laughing. “I kept telling Adam, ‘I can’t do it. You go!’”

She went.

Customers loved her work.

Rivers and Roads opened online through Etsy <RiversAndRoadsLLC.etsy.com> in January 2022.

Adam said they’ve intentionally grown slowly, carefully choosing each ingredient they will use, each product their hands will make, and each vendor they will invite into their store.

They opened the Nashville storefront at 76 East Main St. in April of 2023.

Throughout the little shop, signs tell customers about each artist who crafted the sustainable products before them. The majority are local.

The back of the store boasts craft tables where walk-in customers can paint their own pottery. Gracie also offers group and individual ceramics classes by appointment.

Like any business launch, Gracie said this season of their life has had its share of highs and lows. What keeps them moving forward, she said, is the joy of work that is good for the planet and good for people.

The best affirmations come when into the shop walks a customer who sought them out from Columbus, Bloomington, or Etsy, Adam said.

“To see their faces light up because they really get what we’re doing here is just awesome,” Gracie said. “But even more than that, to see our kids talk with pride about the choices we make at our shop— that’s really sweet.

“Even on the days that feel long, we check back in with each other and know, without a doubt, that we’re living life on purpose.”