Our Conversation with Waterbody Founder Angie Flickinger

We are so excited to kick off our series Moments, Movements, and Makers. Our premiere conversation is with The Founder of Waterbody Angie Flickinger discusses self love as a revolutionary act. The process of incorporating nature and the environment into the Waterbody collection of products and how she creates an intentional space in her home with elements that bring her joy!

 Here are the edited excerpts from our conversation. You can watch the  entire fun filled and wild conversation at the @mela.lifestyle IGTV, 

  

 

Mela Lifestyle: If you can share with us your “aha” moment. How you turned a passion into a business with Waterbody?

Waterbody: The journey started when I was in school, I did Environmental Studies. I was a total “nature nerd”. Loved Exploring. Spent a lot of time in the backcountry as well just in my free time. That evolved into a personal study of herbalism and plants. Living in Alaska we have a lot of traditional use of plants. The native culture up here, have used these plants for years and years. There are tons of interesting information and uses for local plants. So I “nerded out” on that for a while. I worked in the non profit world and needed to change my brain around a little bit. I started dabbling in herbal creations and concoctions with local plants that I would gather from around here. Making things for myself and my friends, just testing out these products.  I thought I would love to try dipping a toe into business. Something about that really called to me. I was running the non- profit for a while and it was a transferrable skill set. I just needed to stretch my brain in different creative ways. So, I sort of dipped a little toe in with some of those herbal creations and it was all skin care based products at local markets around here to see how people responded. I loved it and I was hooked! The “aha” moment was just like “Yes, I can do this”. It is a challenge. I’ve stepped into it and I enjoy meeting that challenge every day”.

 

 

 

 

 

Mela Lifestyle: In reading over The Waterbody Manifesto you talk about nature and the environment. Can you share with us your process of creating The Waterbody line and the products? 

 

Waterbody: The entire Waterbody line, the brand, everything, is completely inspired by the place where I live. So, I live in Southeast Alaska. We are on this tiny little island called Wrangell. It is a town of about 2,000 people. There are more wild animals than humans around us. It is this incredible jaw dropping gorgeous place. We are so fortunate to have this vast expansive wilderness around us. We have ocean. We have forrest. We have wild rivers. It is incredible. It is hard not to be inspired by that everyday. I was very intentional about the brand standing as an invitation for people to come into this wild space. I wanted these products to not only invite you into this landscape, also help people connect to that same sense of wildness and freedom that you find when you are out in nature. I often think of the transformative power of nature. 

 

 

Mela Lifestyle: Can you share an experience that you have had in nature, or with an animal or with a plant that stays with you on your journey? 

 

WaterBody: Just this summer I did a 10 day paddle trip around one of our neighboring islands. Again, it is uninhabited and a total wilderness area. Just drop dead gorgeous. At that point during the summer there were a lot  of fish cruising around. So there were tons of whales feeding. We had some pretty wild encounters with hump back whales. You're out there paddling in your canoe. It is you and one other person in the canoe. You kinda zone out and drop into yourself. All of sudden this whale mouth comes out of the water. So close that everyone sort of stops. We just sit there and watch this whale start feeding around us. It is equal parts fear because there is this massive incredible wild animal that is so close to you, and you are in this tiny little boat. It is so awe inspiring because you do remember that you are just this tiny little part of something so much bigger. I think that will stay with me forever. That feeling of being really small is very humbling. I think it is important and beneficial to have those moments in life. That I am apart of this bigger thing. There are other things going on around me. You kind just step back and watch it happen. It was incredible. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mela Lifestyle: We love The Waterbody Manifesto. We wanted to share with our community below:

 

 

 

Waterbody: I am so glad it resonates and comes through. I think it is the ritual and the act of carving out time for yourself. Those activities that allows you to turn your brain off, tune into yourself and just check in with what is going on. When we are in our everyday lives, we are really busy. We are meeting everyones needs and it is really easy to not hear your own inner dialogue and tune into your own needs. 

 

 

Mela Lifestyle:  Our heart and our passion at Mela Lifestyle is to allow people to be fully who they are outside and inside their home. To be fully known. That who they are in the world is also translated into their home environment. How have you experienced your home in these times?

 

Waterbody: Wild Times! I have really leaned into the things that bring me the most comfort in my home space. I love cooking. I have spent the most time in my kitchen in the last year that I have in a long time. Speaking of the spaces we create in our home, my partner and I are in the process of building our own home, here in Wrangell. We are building it ourselves by hand. I have been really intentional about going through our home with the objects that we have collected, those items that are really true and meaningful to us and bring us a lot of joy and comfort. It has been an interesting process of distilling down our space to the things that have the most value and meaning for us; and really create a cozy sense of who we are, in our own space. 

 

Mela Lifestyle: Wow! What a great opportunity to live out your brand in building  this foundation and home for you and your partner!

 

Waterbody: Absolutely! What’s really cool is that we are surrounded by Tongass National Forest. We were able to find a bunch of salvaged wood that was harvested on the island and was milled years and years ago. So we are building our home out of wood from our own forrest that surrounds us. That is actually so cool and important to me. Part of keeping it local and sustainable as possible. We are bringing a lot of elements of nature in with Cedar trees that are outside our window that are now going to be apart of our home. It does all seem to be full circle and it has been great to create an intentional space with elements that bring us the most joy.