Lisa P.

We connected with Lisa via old-school bi-coastal correspondence to ask this talented wanderer about the delights that make her world go around. Not surprisingly, her responses are evident in this poetic OZMA editorial she created with photographer and friend Lucy Laucht (co-founder of Southwestern-inspired hattery Tio y Tia). While there are endless moments for us to delve into her story, we started at a place where most of us were still awkwardly struggling to bloom.

What were you like in high school?

Thoroughly and decidedly un-cool. Quiet, unsure, and 110% by the books—a real goody two-shoes (never drank, smoked, cursed etc.) Catholic school will do that to you.  

You said in the past "I love the fact that you can wear someone's version of art/design... that feels really special to me" - what is it about OZMA's collection that feels so special to you? 

The beautiful simplicity of it all—the organic textures and the warmth that texture brings to the pieces. The fact that I can wear that slip dress practically every day and never tire of it. 

Favorite item in your closet currently?

Sweatpants.

You've mentioned that writing is you first and omnipresent love, what keeps you motivated with your writing practice?

I love writing but I don't do it in a wake-up-in-the-morning-and-wax-poetic-on-the-daily sort of way. I feel like I am much more task-oriented than that and I find that I need an assignment or prompt to get me started. The greater outcome is a finished piece of work, I suppose.

Biggest struggle as a freelance writer?

Making money.

Morning person or night owl?

Neither really. Working in restaurants for over a decade basically meant that I'd get home in at 2:00 a.m. or later, which made it so that I love being in bed by 10:00 p.m., lights out by midnight at the latest. All that being said, I am most definitely not a morning person—being made to wake up when it's still dark is unforgivable in my book. I think the long and short of it is that bed is my favorite place to be.

What sentence, written by you or another author, stays with you? Is there a line in fiction or nonfiction that echoes often in your mind?

Ah. This is a tough one. I actually don't have a specific line that I carry with me. There are definitely entire passages from books that have taken me out at the knees and an infinite number of two-word combinations and back-to-back sentences that have left be giddy and absolutely thrilled but they are so vast in number that I could never begin to attempt to regurgitate them on command. I suppose my most recent favorite passage is from a book I'm currently reading: 

And then there's some quote from the Great Gatsby about the lawn and sound and color and maybe about something twinkling but I can't remember it for the life of me—all I remember was being in a literature class and having a professor point out the use of color as sound and my sophomoric mind being completely blown away and enamored by that idea.

When you were gaining notoriety as a florist with big name clients, you mentioned it felt a little disingenuous sharing on social media because the reality was that you were working under humble circumstances. Are there new practices you try to strive for to be more genuine in the social media landscape? Or does it feel like we are catching on and that social media world is consumed with a caveat that it's not always as it appears?

I wish I could say yes but the answer is most definitely no. I mean, social media is based entirely on cherry-picking the best, most beautifully curated and airbrushed version of yourself, your home, your friends, your travels, you business, your life. It's all just one big, sweeping exercise in marketing/pr and I'm caught up in it as much as anyone else is. I suppose if there's a place for honesty it would be in some of my captions or in the stories I post and there is a slice of honesty in the fact that I truly take pleasure in creating beautiful things—whether it's a home or a paragraph or an arrangement—and the photos of my home or arrangements are an extension of that—taking them and composing them makes me happy. I think the thing that's hard about Instagram is that everyone's fragile egos are crammed tight into one 24 hour, 7 days a week, never-ever off, always accessible place that's based entirely on feeling validated by likes and that makes it feel really unhealthy. They've done an amazing job of tapping into the insecure junior high-schooler in all of us.