Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Viola.
Jessica, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have always had a fascination with plants and the natural world. Although it wasn’t until I left downstate NY, where I was born and raised, and moved up to Ithaca, NY, where I went to school, that it was really stirred and came alive. I recall one of my first nights in Ithaca, walking with a friend down by Cayuga Lake, and my heart beating so fast. I was scared of that intense dark although it was a perfectly peaceful night and I was with a dear friend. There were no other people, no lights or even light pollution, no city hums, no planes – nothing. There were just the stars and the moon and the sounds of summer down by the lake in upstate NY. Never in my life until then had I spent time immersed in the quiet of nature. It was that peace, that absolute solace that I would seek and discover over and over through the years I spent in Ithaca, days writing or reading in the gorges. I was in the B.F.A. program at Ithaca College which was an exceptional experience and in my down time, I spent a lot of my time studying religion – Buddhism or Taoism, Christianity, Judaism, etc. I suppose I was intrigued by how humans find connection, with each other and the world we live in.
Spending time by myself in those gorges, I would study the way water flowed or patterns in leaves or how wind moved across the landscape. Cycles in time and moments in space. I began to notice how weather moved and why, becoming curious about what plant grew next to what tree and why, wondering why some thrived and others did not. All the while reading poetry and texts on religion or science, personal growth, history … I felt connected and whole, like there was one place in the world that no matter what I had lived through or might experience in my life, here, I belonged. I was a part of. And it could hold all of me with the same capacity that I could hold it. And even when I couldn’t, it still held me.
After school, not wanting to move back to NYC, although I had just graduated from an incredible acting school and was auditioning for agents in the city, I decided to move to San Francisco. I was young and naive and had never been to California. I camped cross country, seeing so much. My little mind which until then only knew NY, opening exponentially, expanding as the terrain expanded with every westward mile.
I arrived in San Francisco and immediately found work producing in film, both feature and documentary. It turned out, I liked producing. But I hated working in an office. Early on, at about 23 years old, I quit what was actually a great job with great pay. I found myself living in West Marin County, in a little town called Fairfax, north of San Francisco. I needed money and a job – I remember thinking “This is just for money, not a “career”. And I asked myself – “What do I want to do?” I was 23. I was in my garden. I remember the sounds so clear, the wind in the chimes.
And without hesitation my answer was “I want to work with plants”. I wanted to be outside, “IN California”. So I followed the bouncing ball.
I walked down to the CA Native Plant Nursery in Fairfax, CA – O’Donnell’s Fairfax Nursery. I walked in and I met this man who happened to be from the same part of Long Island that I was from. He asked me if I had experience with horticulture or ecology. I said no. He asked me if I had retail experience. I said no. I had been spending time doing restoration projects with Golden Gate Parks and Rec here and there, brought to by my friend Josiah Clark, who had lit a fire in my heart at a young age, newly arrived from NY, teaching me around ecology and birds and plant guilds and habitat restoration. But I knew nothing of consequence at that time.
Needless to say, the nursery manager wound up quitting the next day and the owner called me in. I started working at $10/hour, being schooled and having to learn the names of each and every native plant at the nursery. I learned about gardening, plant identification, ecology and landscape construction, my boss at the time lifting me up. Never mind that I was a ‘girl’, he taught me how to install a French drain or fix irrigation or plant a fruit tree. He taught me how to operate a chain saw! Always reminding me of new solutions in ecology, turning my eyes towards the sky to notice whether the sea birds were flying overhead and what indication that had in terms of weather patterns inland.
After four years at the nursery, I began doing fine gardening in Marin County. At this point, now encroaching my late twenties, I figured I had better get ‘real’ and continue pursuing a ‘career’ that wasn’t ‘vocational. I wound up getting hired by a fantastic casting agency in San Francisco called Beau Bonneau Casting. The owner, Beau, a great person and intelligent businessman, began to teach me now how to run business. This would really help me down the line. I learned about accounting, business management, profit and loss. I helped him set up the infrastructure for what would become a very successfully endeavor, called LA Casting. This is ultimately what brought me to LA.
Once again, about a year after moving to LA in 2005, I found myself struggling with the direction my life was taking me inside an office. I still had this pull to do environmental work. It was clear and palpable. I finally made the decision, with Beau’s support, to leave LA Casting and move forward with pursuing gardening and landscape design.
I immediately found work with a wonderful woman on her permaculture project, building and then tending her garden in Topanga CA. We employed a permaculture design in her garden by building with our hands using dry stack techniques to make her walls, her patios, her grape arbors. We recycled the Eucalyptus trees we cut down and turned her garden in to a food forest, restoring the oak woodland habitat with natives and flowering, edible perennials. I practiced drying herbs, pressing olive oil, building herb spirals (the quintessential permaculture mark!). I became deeply familiar with what did well under oaks in southern California as well as what thrived along the coast. At this same time I took my first Permaculture Class with Larry Santoyo.
It changed my life. I felt I had finally found a system that spoke to me, integrating a holistic approach to landscape design and build, as well as gardening. I began to understand how patterns in nature could be replicated in terms of business modeling and social relationships. In essence, tying me back to where I began years prior in those gorges in Ithaca. As I studied Permaculture and worked with my hands in the earth for years, I began to understand how patterns in nature could be used, further, as models for personal growth and healing, an approach I use alongside landscape design in process with my clients. Every garden is so personal.
I would go on to get certified in Permaculture both in Southern CA and in Mexico with Earthflow. I was accepted in to the teacher training certification in Santa Fe in 2010 and that same year took an intensive at Cal Earth on natural building and ‘earth architecture’. I was traveling to Peru a lot at this point, as well, learning about different approaches to natural building and plant guilds in the Amazon and in Cusco, falling in love with this beautiful culture. It was at this same time that I launched my line of living Jewelry, Viola Living Jewels, inspired by my travels to Peru, in an attempt to engage people in relationship with plants in a beautiful way, using gold plated chains and rare gems, approaching jewelry design as an opportunity to landscape the body.
But my heart is and always has been working with the Earth.
I have been in business since 2007. My goal is to find a sustainable and ecologically sound way of employing time-tested approaches to garden design, landscape architecture and landscape construction, within a modern context. I love modern design and love to explore ways of making each project feel contemporary, as called for by the architecture. I do my best to employ a personal approach so that I can work individually with clients and curate palettes and textures that are unique and meaningful to each client, engaging them in a relationship with the garden, each other and the people in their lives.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I have been very lucky, and very clear. I have never doubted the path I have chosen and so, opportunities have opened for me. Or perhaps I have always sought solutions within the struggles that have arose. Bill Mollison said that ‘The problems of the world grow increasingly complex while the solutions remain embarrassingly simple”. Not to say it’s been easy. I have had to learn how to do the work I do hands-on, often needing to figure it out on my own. In hindsight, these moments are what built strength and resilience. When the economy crashed in 2009 that was tough because building came to a halt. But that led me to study in new ways, to travel and to launch Viola Living Jewels. I got pregnant early on in a new relationship and found myself a mother, needing to figure out how to make money with a 3 month old strapped to my chest. Being a woman in a field predominantly run by men has been a struggle at times. Learning how to live a holistic life and hold my own in a field of men has been a craft I’ve needed to learn. This reality pushed me to become better and better at what I was doing so that I could have comprehensive and intelligent conversations with the people I work with, including many wonderful men. It has helped me learn how to build relationships and get projects done on budget and well so that I can garnish respect. I didn’t learn landscape design and landscape construction in school. I learned it over 10,000 hours, with my hands in the earth, holding a shovel, taking jobs wherever they would come up so long as they were with good people and could help me pay the rent. I recently went through a very difficult divorce which tried me personally and financially. But yet again, as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It only forced me to hold on more firmly to my passion and purpose and to work hard to build my business even more. I’m a single mother to an amazingly bright, insightful and wise little girl. She is at the forefront of my pursuits as I am committed to offering her whatever I am capable of. I always tell her I want her to be me, and more. Being a single mother, running a business with multiple moving parts and maintaining a personal life is not easy, but with each year it gets easier as I have found ways of cultivating healthy relationships with the people I work with. Nothing happens in a freeze frame. I approach my business within the context of my life and do my best to see that all are balanced. Design is relationship, and my life is no exception.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Viola Gardens is a full-scale ecological landscape design and build company that specializes in drought-tolerant, restorative, permaculture design within a modern context. We do a lot of hillside erosion control and a lot of drought-tolerant gardens using native and naturalized plants, as well as succulents, edibles and grasses. We also do creative hardscaping of all kinds. My background in and passion for art and gardening has helped me forge an aesthetic so that each garden feels like a unique piece of art. I use plants like paints, choosing colors and texture. I am always seeking new and more innovative, creative ways, of achieving a unique look. We do a lot of modern and contemporary designs, integrating permeable surfaces, recycling what we can and finding other uses for materials.
For example, a couple of years ago, I designed the landscape for a Rodney Walker Case Study in Sherman Oaks. This job was challenging because it involved no right angles. The house was built entirely using 45 degree angles. Each design is a puzzle and this was a fun challenge. This project required a very hands-on approach so that I could examine the space during installation from as many angles as possible. As a designer I seek to always look at the picture outside the frame. There was an old patio that was busting up and needed to be replaced. Instead of demoing the patio and hauling it away, we were able to reuse the concrete to build urbanite retaining walls to support a steep slope on the property where we then planted natives, with roots three times the size of the upper body, all the while planting in pattern but with a diverse palette to attract pollinators and birds, thus building soil and providing seasonal blooms throughout the year. This home is an example of how we use ecological design and permaculture within the context of modern architecture. So the hardscape maintains the aesthetic and we then use the plants in swaths, much like a painter would, to create cohesion with diversity.
I try to tailor each project to the unique needs and personality of my clients, taking the time to meet with each person and talk not just about aesthetics and what they desire in terms of vision for their garden, but who they are, how they live, how they move through the space. How does water flow on the land. What are the needs of the landscape within the confines of their garden walls as well as beyond? What is called for by the local ecology as in what will thrive, what will grow.
I believe we arrive at design solutions, we don’t impose them. I approach each project as an opportunity to create something special to that person, family or business, so that there is a born relationship between them and the garden which can impact their own connection to the earth and the time they spend alone and with people they love in their space. I like to build personal relationships with a lot of my clients so that we can cultivate that style of collaboration, and I like to help couples, in particular, find ways of resolving differences so that the garden ultimately has a unified vision and feel for all. I am also honest and straightforward. Contractors don’t always have good reputations for being transparent, on time, on budget. So I try to take the time ahead to really hone in what is possible as we curate the design and the budget to fit each person’s needs. This way everyone feels involved in and good about the process so we can move in to our build phase with as little surprises as possible, as it relates to budget, and without compromising the overall end goal and vision. My role as a landscape designer will leave an impact on each project for many years to come so I try to maintain an awareness of that and be sensitive to it.
I feel as landscape designers we are stewards of the earth. It’s my job to champion what is reasonable and responsible as it relates to earth stewardship as much as possible, while creating something beautiful for my clients. It has to be beautiful and it has to make sense and it should be helping the earth, not hurting it. My entire approach, albeit to the design, to the plants, the local ecology, the sourcing of materials, the vendors I work with, the clients I collaborate with and how the garden will be used is based in relationship. Design, to me, is relationship. Plain and simple. So I try to employ a holistic approach, always, using the principles of permaculture within a contemporary aesthetic.
What sets me apart from other landscape designers and contractors is probably my strong knowledge of gardening and ecology, now, after nearly 20 years of hands-on practice – and my desire to make living art in the garden and build a bridge between the garden and the people enjoying it. I love putting pen to paper but what I know most comprehensively comes from planting thousands of plants in hundreds of spaces in different parts of California and learning what works and what doesn’t, not just in space but over time. I learned what I know building with my own two hands, first, before hiring people later to help me do it, paying attention to the needs of the landscape and spending much time on site, creating on site much like an artist would create a sculpture. It’s just my art lives, breathes, changes and grows over time.
What were you like growing up?
That’s hard to say. I think bent twigs are beautiful. I appreciate the odd and twisted path I have chosen because I feel like it’s carried all of me with it. Meaning my work embodies so much of who I am on so many levels that I wonder had I gone to school for landscape architecture when I was younger, or had I gotten a business degree or partnered with someone else or taken a safer and more pragmatic approach, if this business and what I bring to it would be the same. Much like a garden, Viola Gardens and I have grown together over many years and what we do now, as a landscape collective and how we create in the studio and on site, has been a process that has evolved over time. I see how each turn in my life and the choices I have made have led me to where I am today, with my particular style and with more diversity to offer in so far as experience. So it’s hard to say what I would do differently.
I suppose it would have been helpful to have gone to school for landscape architecture early on or taken a drawing class. Or to have learned AutoCAD or kept myself abreast of the changes in technology. I’ve always been a bit of an analog girl in a digital world. I love drafting by hand although I am coming in to ways of streamlining aspects of my business through the use of better technology. But I can remember doing production boards by hand and when the computers go down, I can run a business manually. No regrets, I suppose.
Of course, I have made mistakes and have had to learn through trial and error, what works, what doesn’t, how to handle problems, manage clients, train employees, communicate clearly, organize effectively, market efficiently, etc. I’ve learned to recognize problems as indicators of new solutions. In nature, it’s interesting to note that the remedy always grows right next to the poison. For every mistake or twist my life has taken, it’s always led me to a better place, helped me grow more resilient, more resourceful, and more creative. The problem is the solution.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.violagardens.com
- Phone: 415.722.0749 * 323.739.6545
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/violagardens/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/violagardensdesign/
Image Credit:
Photography: Jennifer Toole, Siouxzen Kang, Suzanne Strong, Nicol Ragland
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
