A signature of Nantucket Island is our flowers.

We don’t just have flowers in gardens, shops and farms here. Nantucket is land of the next level window box; a public art form.

A time honored activity remains admiring the window boxes in different enclaves of the island. Most are done by award-winning landscape designers and freshened at the level of a never empty glass of White Burgundy at Le Languedoc.

From flower farms, to secret collectives, and The Gucci Gardener, our complete guide to Nantucket floral design drops this afternoon.

We traversed the unfurling boxes of Fair Street to our honor-system flower stand to create this guide. We’re playing favorites on growers, shops, and designers who define coastal aesthetics now.

Behold our guide to Nantucket flowers.

WINDOW BOXES

Favorite window boxes line the streets of and cascade off of historic downtown, with Fair Street and Federal Street taking the cake. Don’t miss the sumptuous boxes at the hotels and grand dame houses.

Out in Sconset, the art form and aesthetic perform differently, as the houses turn to jewel boxes and the flower boxes need to add polish without outperforming or upstaging their small vessels.

FLOWER FARMS

While Moors End Farm, Bartlett’s Farm and Harvest Garden all grow their own flowers, Harvest Garden remains the only organic biodynamic garden, where you can interact with the garden and see all the flowers throughout the property. Bartlett’s has the largest nursery and is especially fun during Daffy when there is a proper competition for best Daffodils. All three offer potted plants in spring, cut flowers in summer and Harvest Garden offers an honor system flower stand if you can get there before they’re all gone. Moors End is hands down the prettiest during the holidays and our go-to for Christmas Trees. Their lights alone are worth the trip.

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Enter two gifts.

Firstly, on Nantucket, we are amidst the most beautiful natural resources and materials of land, salt water, wood, stone, bone and shells. No need to shop beyond these shores and your closet for these rituals. Our own belongings, and what’s accessible here, curates most everything we could desire. Of course, if you want to shop, no shade there.

Secondly, we present rituals that clear space to empower us to receive more, and look and feel more vibrant in our bodies. This time of year, this is a necessity. We move through these practices to enter next month refreshed.

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The media, both traditional and social, charting these cultural shifts hits like a fresh breeze. New Moons are often equated with a fresh start. We are seeing so many people around us step back from performance for audiences that aren’t actually all that valuable to them. We are seeing a shift back towards being seen and appreciated for who we actually are, and away from performing a safe version of ourselves we think will be “liked”. As we discussed in the last issue, it’s our uniqueness, our freak flags, our passions and pleasures, that are really the whole point.

This substack platform has been incredible for nurturing our self-expression. Your notes have been divine.

The south node element of this eclipse is about the dropping of dated narrative… What would you make, say, do, wear, eat, buy, cook up if you didn’t worry about approval or acceptance from anyone beyond yourself? What if we told you it would actually magnetize more inspiring people into your orbit?

Hello Leo season.

One of the many perks to being on Nantucket is being surrounded by water. Our ocean is both literally and spiritually cleansing.

So this is a w a t e r issue… filled with ritual of how we enjoy our salty life en plein air.

OUTDOOR SHOWERS

Outdoor showers on Nantucket are an art form. There is literally no feeling like a hot shower as the evenings and mornings start to crisp late summer into early autumn. Stock yours with your favorite skin and hair products, rotate new ones or make your own. Ava likes to next level her ritual with a salt scrub she makes of Celtic Sea Salt, Almond Oil, Liquid Coconut Oil, Orange Oil and Lemon Oil. Adjust to scent preferences. Post shower, we’re terrified of ticks with good reason, so Ava makes a body oil of Avocado Oil, Coconut Oil, Apricot Oil and Rosehip Seed Oils, with Orange Oil and Geranium Oil as scents. Rose Geranium Oil is a potent natural tick repellent that doesn’t smell bad. It works by disrupting the sensory receptors ticks use to locate a host, masking the cues that usually draw them to us. Ninja style. In high concentration this oil can literally kill ticks on contact. Clove oil is nice for this purpose too, but not quite as potent, and smells more late summer early Fall as a scent, for those of us that are scent-sitive...

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Welcome to our literary inspiration issue.

A playful piece of art has sparked some interpretations worth distilling. In terms of intention, the quarterboard heard around the world, hanging on the ceiling at Sylvia Antiques — originally created by John, photographed by Jess, with collective thoughts editorialized by Ava — is not meant to be a wall. It was never about keeping anyone out. Any conception of the quarterboard that makes people with earned influence feel targeted or unwelcome is their perspective.

We feel no one has more right to be on Nantucket than anyone else, save for the Wampanoag, whose land this is.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are,” is widely attributed to Anaïs Nin and rings keenly true now. We tend to see art as we are; our lens and general internal state color our interpretation. That’s how so many people can see the same Nantucket quarterboard as humorous, some can see it as an opportunity to pit us against one another, and a few can even find it deeply inflammatory. Yet it’s all the same piece of art.

It is not uncommon that people have vastly different initial responses to art. Some of Ava’s all-time favorite word art include works by Ed Ruscha and Christopher Wool, works she’s had the privilege of seeing in person, and working with in her career as a publicist. Highly recommend checking out these works for inspiration, in person at museums and galleries around the world. There are those that find these pieces of art unappealing or even threatening, and others who will gladly pay tens of millions of dollars for them, and do.

If you’re lucky enough to come to Nantucket, you’re lucky.

And chances are, you have real impact in your world. Here on the island, we have incredible writers, chefs, actors, tradespeople, media personalities, designers, artists, philanthropists, photographers and creatives among us. They’re deeply inspiring. We collaborate with and support them through our work in public relations and photography, respectively.

Real influence has always been welcome here, and those who carry it, at ease.

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Welcome to Nantucket Forever. We’re so glad you’re here!

Nantucket Island has historically been a low key summer refuge for escaping the pressure to look polished and photo-ready. Lately, it resembles something closer to a film set. Most people, from all corners of life, come here to sit shoulder to shoulder, to reconnect face to face, with people who don’t care who they are in “America” or how they dress. Some come for their own slice of dreamy beach. Many come for epic salt water fishing, belly-laughing over bonfires, reading paperback books, hunting deer, recreational sports, dining, imbibing and quality time with loved ones. Return visitors are welcomed back each season by business owners, whom they harbor deep respect and affection for…

The class structure is unique, because demand outweighs supply. That’s how it actually feels, on the ground.

We also have fun cultural quirks here, vestiges of times long past, like Nantucket quarterboards, which are more comparable to snail shells or tattoos than street signs. They are very personal in nature, and cheekily adorn our homes… as a distinct element of our historic coastal culture. They take months to hand carve and hand paint, and last well beyond the inhabitants inside the structures they whimsically adorn…

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Let’s dive back in. We begin this week, with discussing what we choose not to photograph.

More and more, whether to whip out a phone or camera in the middle of a Nantucket experience to “capture” or “share” it, is becoming a dividing line in the sand of not only taste, but shared experience. This is especially spicy in places where we live relationally to one another; whether at a small music venue [cc: The Box], say standing in the middle of Main Street, or out to dinner where your flash will blind the people next to you.

There is a difference between looking at a place and looking at a picture of it.

There is likewise a difference between watching a show live, feeling the band move the room, and watching it on a screen.

There is a difference in how we experience anything when we know we are being photographed.

Jess leaves certain things out of frame on purpose. Ava restricts photography at certain events on purpose, and generally enjoys a good drone for vibes. We set our phones aside when we sit down to talk about this project and what to funnel through to you, that will enhance not only your afternoon, but enjoyment of Nantucket.

What we don’t share publicly says much more about us than what we do share.

We keep an informal evolving list of what elevates, preserves and records, and a polite pass list of what detracts from the richness of real lived experience. In terms of imagery, does the frame spark wonder and imagination? Or is it telling us how to perform in an overly orchestrated world that leaves us feeling like we need to buy-in to belong? Is the Pop-up a Trunk Show at a local’s space who pays year-round rent, or an independent brand grab with no ties to Nantucket, its residents, non-profits or quality of life?

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ON INFLUENCE

This week Sylvia Antiques and the Four Winds Craft Guild hung a new quarterboard. Two words, carved and gilded the old way: No Influencers. Jess’ photograph.

The response? 5000 new followers and an outpouring of support.

A shop that has spent nearly a century [100 years next year] selling Nantucket friendship baskets, marine antiques and folk art declined the entire influencer economy in a single gesture, and the internet rewarded it with the very thing influencers are paid to deliver.

The quarterboard is not about being contrarian or unwelcoming. It is about knowing exactly who we are and standing in our integrity, and dare we say, humble good taste.

Nantucket has always understood this. As writer Annie Davidson Watson put it in a single word this month; Nantucket exercises “restraint”. Nantucket does not chase. She lures. Scarcity is not a strategy here. It is a way of life that happens to photograph beautifully and resonate well beyond our shores.

What Four Winds and Sylvia Antiques understands, and what the smartest island brands understand, is that provenance is timeless [old and new] influence. A quarterboard carved by hand carries more authority than a thousand gifted posts. The audience can feel the difference.

The irony, of course is that refusing so-called modern influence turned out to be the most influential move of the season. But it only works when it is true. You cannot fake a hundred years.

That is the island and the standard of old world excellence the new world seeks.

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THE SUMMER SLIDE

Nantucket is sliding into summer and she is looking real perrrtty. Apologies Ava sent this to the wrong Substack last week. Still learning. So double issue this week!

The light at 7 pm is doing that thing it only does here. This is the week the season stops being a rumor and starts being a schedule. Here are some gems on our agenda.

1. A …

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Welcome to edition No. 2 of Nantucket Forever. We are back with five picks and 5 pics for your weekly reading pleasure. On Sunday, Ava hit Chelsea Handler at the opening performance of the recently renovated Nantucket Performing Arts Center. Her opener, Yamaneika, was phenomenally hilarious. Check her out, for sure. One of the best things about living o…

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Nantucket Forever is a collaboration between us, Ava Rollins and Jess Jenkins. We are based on Nantucket Island, but have lived many other places, and travel often. This is a curated, seasonal, weekly love note. We present five curated picks and photos, to connect with the ethereal beauty of Nantucket, and its rhythms rooted in the natural world and relational living. Jess is the founder of Jessica Jenkins Photography. Ava is the founder of Ava Rollins + Associates, a PR Agency.

We plan to run the newsletter mid May to mid October, or roughly Horseshoe Crab Mating Season thru Recreational Scalloping Season on Nantucket, in tentpole events that make us smile with glee. But you have to start somewhere, so we thought this was a good week to start, without overthinking it.

Monday, on Nantucket brings a summer Mercury Retrograde. Ava writes a bi-monthly astrology and moon phase report for Supta Yoga, our favorite studio, where Jess is an instructor you can enjoy in their instagram. The studio maintains both a central flagship space on Amelia Drive, and a seasonal summer space at Almanack Arts Colony, now in full swing. Every other Friday, starting today, Mary Claus [yesss Mrs. Claus] brings back her life-changing 1.Myofascial Release Class at the Barn. This is a not to be missed hour of deep LAX-ball, blanket and bird-song induced release, every other Friday this summer at 9AM. Pop-ins are $37, with memberships / class packs available.

The retrograde brings an opportunity for reconsidering and restructuring, and so this note is birthed prior to it’s seasonal visit. We have both been a bit tapped out on visitors parachuting in creating guides to sell us stuff we don’t need. While we are both proud to contribute our writing and photos to established print magazines, we saw an opportunity to create something entirely feel good and ad-free, that gives us the vibes we want to be immersed in, in season.

Sunday morning, Nantucket’s beloved Ornithologist Ginger Andrews leads her generally full 2.Bird Walk for the Maria Mitchell Association. If you thought the Merlin App was enthralling, try a walk with Ginger. Her avian knowledge is largely unparalleled on island and even in places off, she is known to pop-up in Central Park, and you will find her personal style is pleasingly on point. Pop-ins are $35, with memberships available to the dynamic non-profit that operates many low to no-cost programs on island. This walk leaves from the MMA Campus 4 Vestal St.

Nantucket Dreamland has announced its summer 3.Drive-in Movie Schedule, and we’re already planning snacks and how to trick out the back of the trucks, for the Grateful Dead, Dirty Dancing, Jaws and The Goonies. Reserve ahead at $52/ vehicle.

One of the things we love most about Nantucket is being on the water. Think you need a boat or yacht to go out on the water? No, no, my friend. Take the 4.Water Ride that leaves from behind Straight Wharf Fish from 7am to midnight. At $9/ride, Jess is so enamored she just bought a frequent flyer pack haha and hopped back around with her camera to snap this…

We also love a little Nantucket 5.Sports. Think you need a $300,000 club membership to enjoy the courts? The private clubs are a treat, don’t get us wrong. But very few have waterfront courts! Last year, the Town led a major reconstruction of the Jetties Beach Courts, to improve and upgrade the facilities. Funding was approved at the 2024 Town Meeting, by our community, for our community. Jetties Tennis is open to the public from 8 to 8.

We will be profiling greatest hits in treasure hunting from TIOLI to the Thrift Shop to the Antique Shops. If you want to submit fodder, you can do so as an annual subscriber. We will offer a preview of each week’s edition on instagram @NantucketForever.

We hope this weekly Friday afternoon delight, as our old friends at Whalebone Magazine used to call it, hi John, sets the right tone for your weekend. There is a lot to look forward to and we plan to keep it comin’. It’s fun to.

Love,

Ava + Jess