INTERVIEWS: Lissa and Ana of Ship Supply
001— The Inaugural Interview
For the longest time close friends would tell me in cycles, “you need a talk show.”
Because for a while I would comically state my ambitions along the lines of, “I would rather be Oprah than a Kate Moss!”
It felt like an inconsequential icebreaker in the beginning, but words really do have power. You have to speak things into existence. Call me woo-woo.
Ok, So is my talk show in written form— a newsletter (show) for the exploration of ideas and stories with an audience (subscribers).
The benchmark of a great show is who they choose to explore these ideas with, a connection with their subject. Insatiable curiosity, to have more questions than answers. A constant journey through the unknown.
Introducing the next step in Ok, So —
INTERVIEWS: Explorations Into The Stories We Tell Ourselves.
Last Friday, I wrote a piece, My Weekend on Lopez Island about my trip to a remote island in the Pacific Northwest with clothing brand Ship Supply.
Often times when I sit down to write, I have no idea where the story will take me. It is only by keyboard punching on, endless revisions and edits and most importantly, talking to myself out loud, do I find my way to the end.
The Lopez article was that entirely. It unexpectedly turned into travel journalism, in a way, as I unearthed this beautiful story on people and place I felt moved to tell.
Thank you endlessly again to Lissa and Ana. It only felt fitting they would be my inaugural subjects for INTERVIEWS.
For full context, read below before delving further.
My Weekend on Lopez Island
Does every New Yorker reach a point in their tenure where fever dreaming a life outside this monster megalopolis comes to a head?
Can you talk a little about the history of Lopez Island?
From my visit, it felt like the “hippie” (for lack of a better term) of the other San Juan Islands. Less tourist attraction & monied. More community-based. Is that the spirit of Lopez Island?
Lopez island is the third largest in the San Juan Islands with ferry access.
The Lopez spirit is very connected to the land. Its abundant marine life and fertile soil brought sustenance to Salish Coastal Tribes for thousands of years before European settlers arrived in the 1870’s.
The community here still has a great passion for connecting with the land and the beautiful bounty grown in our gardens. Community gatherings and local food are paramount to the people who live here.
Do you both have generations of family that have inhabited this part of Washington? If so, what’s their brief origin story?
Lissa’s parents moved here when they were in their 20’s, they fished in Alaska during the summer earning enough money to buy 5 acres of waterfront land in 1977. Lissa and her two older brothers grew up on that property.
My (Ana) mom bought property on the island in 1994 with several other island families. We camped out on the raw land during the summers and rented in the winter, while building a small island home for my mom, my three older brothers and myself.
Lissa and I now own our own little homesteads on the island where we live, garden, and where we are now raising our own children.
How has growing up in such a small, remote community impacted how you view life? You talked about how K-12 is at one centralized school. How is that reflected onto the ethos of Ship Supply?
One of the greatest gifts from growing up in a small community is the age diversity of your friends. At most gatherings there are babies, kids, teenagers, young adults to 80 and 90 year olds.
We learn from each other.
There are so many creatives and makers on this island, carpenters, artists, writers, gardeners, fishermen. People on Lopez tend to work with their hands, a value that was instilled in us at a young age.
We both have an appreciation for doing things the traditional way, which is often the slower way. I think the value we both place on working with our hands and creative design was a driving force for the creation of Ship Supply.
I read your bio and origin story on your homepage about the inception and intention behind the brand.
How important is it to tell a story with your clothes? To highlight and reflect a special part of the world many don’t know about through Ship Supply?
For better or for worse we tend to do things the hard way. So many advise us to go overseas for sourcing fabric and production, it's cheaper and faster and what most clothing lines do. But not us.
We always start with sourcing our fibers as locally as possible, whether it is wool from a local family farm or organic cotton grown in US soil, we then use this fiber to make fabric and cut and sew our garments.
For us this just feels like the right way to do it. We want to make the highest quality materials while taking care of all the people whose work goes into it.
We often wonder if our customers care about our story. I’m not sure they do, but I do know that when people see and touch our materials, they can tell there is just something extra special about our materials.
Something that struck me while there was how almost everything we ate was local, grown and raised on the island.
Barn Owl Bakery comes to mind and their heritage grain bread.
Has this always been the case for the island? Living off the land.
Yes! This is an integral part of living here, we love to make things from scratch. I have a lot of gratitude for those who taught us this way of living.
Lissa and I often reflect on this, how gardening is so intuitive to us, how we have always known the names of native plants, how to chop firewood, make fires, build things, cook.
From watching our parents and others on the island we learned that you can make anything, do anything. Lissa and I both taught ourselves how to sew at a young age.
I think the freedom of growing food, creating and making things as children has given us the confidence to go for it and make clothing from scratch as well.
We had a conversation about how much of the Lopez properties are being used as summer homes instead of year round residents living on the island.
Has this been a recent occurrence? Do you feel locals are moving away from the island? Do you feel it will get to the point where the locals are few and far between?
Like many places in our country, housing is a huge problem. There are more summer homes now than ever and sadly many local people are moving away because they cannot find housing. Many businesses struggle to find employees as there is no housing available.
Yet so many of us islanders depend on summer tourism to keep our local businesses afloat. It's a tricky issue and there are a lot of people trying to come up with a solution.
I personally think if you are buying a second home here or anywhere else in the world, get involved in the community, participate, and consider what you can do personally to contribute in a positive way.
Lastly, how do you feel hopeful and excited about the future of Ship Supply and Lopez Island?
You welcomed us into your home with an open spirit. Our worlds can feel so distant and different but the gap was definitely closed.
Why now?
We feel very optimistic for our future with Ship Supply, and we hope to incorporate our island way of making into our pieces.
We LOVED having all of you out to the island, sharing our worlds and perspectives.
Our clothing line is so personal to us, it is who we are, our pieces come from our landscape, and sharing our designs is like sharing our home. This is the only way we know how to do it.
Why now? Because not many people know about Ship Supply. We want our garments to get out into the world, for people to fall in love with our heirloom designs and to tell their friends about us. We love what we do and we want to keep making more!
Visit their website to purchase / explore more: Ship Supply
Instagram: Ship Supply