We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessica Viola . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessica below.
Jessica , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Born and raised in Ny with a passion for music, theater and human expression, I found myself studying in a conservatory in Ithaca NY. Quickly immersed in the magnanimous beauty of upstate NY and its expansive state, I found myself enamored with nature and how and why it behaves as it does. Upon graduation, I moved to West Marin, just north of SF. Inspired by so many paths, I was uncertain of one. The only calling I had that was undeniable was a wanting to work with plants. I couldn’t imagine at the time moving across the country to sit inside an office. I wanted to be outside, working with nature, ‘just a job’. I walked into a native plant nursery and was asked if I knew anything about horticulture, ecology, gardening or retail to which my answer was unanimously, No. I was then asked where I was from only to discover the nursery owner and I were from the same hometown in NY. As fate had it, the next day the nursery manager quit and I was hired and thus began my journey and introduction to ecological design, organic gardening, landscape construction and so much more. I got involved in restoration efforts with Golden Gate Park and recs but most of what I learned started, initially, at a corner nursery in west Marin, committed to the ‘revolution’ of ‘going native’ and introducing ca native plants to residential homes in an effort to re-wild and restore habitat.
I moved to LA in 2005, got certified in ecological and permaculture design, along with natural building at Cal Earth, and started my business in 2007. I later went on to get my contractor license making me one of just a handful of fully licensed and bonded female landscape contractors in California.
In hindsight, I think Im exactly where I need to be. Everything I have learned and practiced and come to know over my 24 year career to date has led me here – and there’s still so much more to learn. I taught myself science and ecology, I taught myself to draft, I taught myself to build and craft landscapes.
I’m proud to run a female-led ecological landscape contracting and design firm, to push gender expectations and partner with so many incredible women along the way. So much of a woman’s work goes unspoken, unnoticed. I built this business primarily as a single mom, so I know the struggle of pursuing a career with passion while raising a child. For this reason, I have always engaged a holistic approach to not only the work, but the business model. There are many pressures, assumptions and discriminations that are put on women, particularly in construction. This inspires me to be part of a new paradigm and solution as it relates to the work of women and especially those in construction.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Since 2007, Viola Gardens has been dedicated to the artful transformation of garden spaces throughout Los Angeles County. We specialize in crafting landscapes that seamlessly blend drought tolerance, ecological sustainability, and artistic inspiration. Our team is not only highly skilled and knowledgeable but also boasts a seasoned history of hands-on experience spanning over two decades. As a boutique landscape design and build firm, Viola Gardens stands out as a pioneer in the field as a women-owned and licensed contracting firm, led by founder, principle and contractor, Jessica Viola. Our commitment is centered on regenerative design, earth stewardship and artistic vision with mindful execution.
What sets us apart is our in-house architectural team, which adds another layer of expertise by delivering high-end and innovative designs. With a passion for creating landscapes that transcend the ordinary, Viola Gardens continues to lead the industry, fusing creativity, sustainability, and a dedication to transforming outdoor spaces into captivating works of art and meaningful experiences.
Building on a thriving 17-year permaculture design practice, We recently opened our botanical design studio and ‘The Art and Ecology Studio’ at Viola Gardens in Malibu, collaborative community space designed to promote personal growth, community resilience and cultivate better relationships between people and the natural world through ecology and art. For more information please visit us at www.violagardens.com
As a boutique landscape design and build firm, Viola Gardens stands out as a pioneer in the field as a women-owned and licensed contracting firm, led by founder, principle and contractor, Jessica Viola. Our commitment is centered on regenerative design, earth stewardship and artistic vision with mindful execution.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
PERMACULTURE DESIGN ALWAYS SEEKS TO REPLICATE NATURAL PATTERNS BY CREATING THE EDGE EFFECT WITH EDGE AND ECOTONES. In the landscape, an edge is the interface where two biological communities (for example, forest and valley) or two landscape elements (like land and water) come together. Ecotones occur where two ecological habitats meet, for example oak woodland and marine. The Edge effect in nature is the difference between a flat, non-porous surface with little edge or patten versus one that is permeable, has sharp contrasts in soil or hydrology, and is varying in pattern with lots of edge.
For example, concrete on a sidewalk in a suburb on a hill has very little edge. Concrete is not permeable and is often flat and homogeneous when used to make a sidewalk. When rain comes down onto an angled hill, the water flowing down the sidewalk has nowhere to go, and becomes sheet flow with the potential to cause destruction. At the very least, we have missed an opportunity to sequester and harvest the water, a valuable resource. As holistic designers we want to create an edge, assuming there is no reason not to. We want to find a way to moderate the flow of water, in this case down a hill, so that we can sequester and harvest it for use within the landscape. We might break up the concrete, increase gaps at joints between the slabs, remove the concrete and regrade the hill using berms and swales to catch water, or plant trees and gardens along the swales and berms to encourage the water to recycle itself back into the system.
When we create edge, we create the opportunity for things to happen. And we avoid unnecessary waste.
When the soil is receptive and filled with edge, a garden can grow. Water can permeate the soil. Diverse plants can take root and grow and create conditions for life to flourish. We create an edge in our personal lives when we challenge ourselves to imagine and act just beyond our own limitations — when we allow our ideas to become more porous. This is how we push ourselves to grow. We create edge on an interpersonal level when we create conditions for new patterns to emerge and new relationships to occur by stepping outside of our comfort zones, interacting with people who stimulate us because they are different from us. Art and innovation on the cutting edge of culture push the society to evolve. Without edge, we have a very limited palette. When we are able to personally, interpersonally and collectively create conditions for a diverse range of elements to interact, we can observe where there is affinity, what patterns emerge, and what sticks. We use the principles of Permaculture to problem solve and trust in the power of diversity.
Who you are in this moment is partly a reflection of your nature, the intrinsic qualities that make you who you are, and a summation of your experiences. Consider then the infinite possibilities of your potential that you simply have not experienced yet. Interacting with new people who are outside of your normal safe-zone creates an edge, cultivates compassion, and fosters understanding. Compassion and understanding deepen relationships, and relationships are at the heart of all Permaculture systems. Going after that new job or new career, or developing a hobby that you have always wanted to pursue but felt you couldn’t, creates an edge. Moving beyond fear and stretching your personal edge is an engaging and enlightening way to discover parts of yourself, your spirit and your heart that you never knew were there.
To arrive at my beloved profession, I needed to stretch my own edge. I didn’t go to school to become a landscape designer. Or a gardener. Or a businesswoman. (Or a mother or a partner or a friend!). I got a B.F.A. in Acting from a conservatory in New York. Everything that has been worth anything in my life has existed outside of my initial comfort zone and has required courage, risk and willingness. With each personal stretch beyond my perceived edge, and the discomfort and ultimate transcendence of each rite of passage, I have discovered a vast sky of possibility within. The risks and challenges in my life have created strength, flexibility, and resilience. These qualities then cultivate further and deepen with time, like ridges of a mountain. Each expansion creates the condition for more expansion. And with that, more trust, within and without. I continually refine the art of being human through craft and practice. It’s in the living of life that life comes alive.
In yoga we stretch and breathe to keep the shapes we create within our body alive, new each day. We learn to stay balanced in our breath so that we can stretch beyond ourselves, revolve around ourselves, from the gut, from the bones. We breathe with where we are, new each day, so that we have a chance to expand beyond ourselves and reach the goal: to experience union with self. Union with our nature.
As we do in our gardens, understanding what it means to live on the growing edge of life, to create an edge in our lives, is to live with trust in the way things work, step by step, moment by moment, day by day. It’s trusting that when you jump, you are not going to fall. It may not be comfortable. Sometimes we even bear some bruises and scars, but those scars can help, and will heal you and others. When we allow our broken edges, our vulnerable parts, our perceived holes or messy, irregular and bloody hearts to be, as they are, we create an opportunity for something to happen. When we create space for opportunity, we can experience life on a new level, with soft, renewed skin. Open and receptive to the winds of time. We create an opportunity to be met in ways beyond ourselves. We create an opportunity to reach, expand and assist another, to be of service in the world. When we allow the growing edge to push us up and out, we create an opportunity for water to reach our roots, down and in. We can then be nourished by life systems bigger than we are — and to grow through cracks in the sidewalk.
The Edge illuminates the path forward. Groups outside of the dominant culture give us insight into how we are evolving as a culture at large. We are inspired by “cutting edge” artists or designers, thinkers and movement makers. Our world and opportunities expand and evolve because of what one person, somewhere, believed to be possible and took steps to make happen. From electricity to airplanes, vaccines to smartphones, we are constantly expanding and changing, shifting and evolving. We must consider the whole picture and all the moving parts so that we can evolve in an integrated way on a dynamic and changing planet. No one part is disconnected from the others. One part of the knot moves and indeed the whole knot shifts.
The goal is not to design our lives to avoid experiencing the ups and downs of being alive. But, rather, to embrace natural aliveness and design our lives with edge, to give ourselves the opportunity to evolve, to live the solutions and the lessons. To live a life worth living.
Any significant, valuable relationship, from our professional to our personal lives, requires and encourages growth and pushes us beyond our edge. Sometimes we just need to get out of the way and let our life tell the story it was meant to tell, through us. Sometimes we need to let go just enough to allow for free play, to allow ourselves to come to know deeply what it means to really trust the heart of our experiences — and live boldly from that place. How can we trust another if we cannot trust ourselves, trust that we are held in the heart of life and, more importantly, within our own hearts? How can we expect to trust another and cultivate sustainable relationships within families or communities if we cannot cultivate self-trust?
I was just a few months into a new relationship, on the brink of a collapsing economy that halted construction and landscaping, when I found out I was pregnant. I did not have the option to freak out, the luxury to lose my shit. I had to move immediately towards a solution. I refused to abandon my vision, not out of stubbornness, but because my life has always listened to this song of the sea, the language of plants. Instead of landscaping gardens, I would landscape the human body. I began making beautiful, asymmetrical necklaces with gold-plated crystals, amulets and gems that I had collected on trips to Peru and Mexico, interesting chains and combinations of fabric which hung in unique ways to accentuate the curves and natural movement of a body in space and in time. Intent on forging a connection between plants and gardens and people, I transferred knowledge from the garden to frame the body. I engaged people to care for plants as part adornment, part power piece, part humility. These pieces, which hung down a person’s back and equally down the front in unique ways, not always the same from one side to the other, but always balanced, enticed a person to feel their body, want to nourish the plant, engage with others, foster a connection. I wanted to create a relationship between Mother Nature and Human Nature, the body and the bone, the rock and the respite. So I integrated tiny, custom-cast, gold-plated branches that held air plants, which you could attach to the necklace as a way of acknowledging that your life, your body, was a garden. Of drawing awareness to the ways in which a stone feels draped down the nape of our neck or along the back, or around our breasts.
This little venture, a life on the edge for a single, pregnant woman, was inspired and honest. I gained some press and was able to launch a business, Viola Living Jewels.
Nonetheless, I needed a home with nominal rent. I needed a place where I could rest at ease in my body so my child could learn that from me. I needed a place to grow. I made up my mind years ago to not waste my precious energy worrying about money. Of all the things to worry about, worrying about money was the most boring and futile. Instead, I made a commitment to show up even more fully, more presently, more creatively in my life.
As life would have it, my dear friends offered me a trade (aha, matching needs to resources and skills!): I would help them with some domestic work and organization while they were out of the country and anticipating their first child — and in return, they would offer me their oceanfront home in Venice Beach. I was so financially strapped and so humbled by the changes unfolding and yet here I was, safe, supported by my community and supporting this child inside. Every day I would go down to the ocean and sing to this baby growing in my belly. I would sing to make sense of a future that was beyond my awareness, that my head could not quite wrap itself around, but a future that I knew I was at the heart and helm of.
Vianna was born a few days past the Fall Equinox, a time of the year when there is perfect balance between day and night, on the advent of a new season. Everything about her blessed life, from conception to birth, was sacred and filled my life with the winds of change. When I left the beach, I ended up back on the eastside of LA, focused on developing a solid, sustainable career doing what I loved to support me and this child.
And I did it. Hands in the dirt and head below the heart, one step at a time, over thousands of hours, I regenerated my design business and committed myself to my purpose and passion with more zest, more focus, more intention.
Which is not to say life is a fairytale. There have been many difficult and trying days and moments, but with practice, I have learned to trust my ability to stay balanced and focused as life around me changes, as I change, as I encourage myself to grow beyond myself, always, with the intention to keep my heart and head aligned. Always seeking and embracing the edge.
Where there is edge there is possibility, there is expansion and growth. When we can extend ourselves beyond, we evolve.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Im deeply inspired and motivated to use my platform as an opportunity to forge deeper relationships between human nature and Mother Nature. I do this by approaching landscape design and construction from a relational place with clients, mapping who they are, what they love and how they dream to experience living in the garden within a natural context, exploring creative solutions and opportunities to draw people into the garden. In this way, and working with the environment, with the land, with the grade, leaning into problems as pathways to solutions, we draft a layout that articulates personal intention, creative expression and articulated destination. From here, we then address nuance and design details, aesthetics and such while fostering curiosity and excitement about plants and the garden experience. I believe the more meaningful the garden creation is, the more stewardship is inspired. And the more meaningful time people spend in nature with themselves or those they love, the more opportunity there is to become keenly aware of the patterns that drive natural systems, including humans and our place within the ecological landscape.
Forging relationships between human nature and the world around us, exploring ecology and permaculture, through human expression and art is a subject I am passionate about.
Additionally, the work we do, regenerating soil and habitat, restoring native plants and natural systems to residential gardens, one at a time, is a small but meaningful effort to work towards balance within a world with a climate that is changing.
Finally, working to refine system designs internally with how I run and grow my business is a subject that endlessly inspires me. As well as growing the business by pushing myself to explore creative innovation, new shapes, new materials, more regenerative and sustainable solutions as it relates to landscape design, architecture, construction and material.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.violagardens.com
- Instagram: @violagardens
- Facebook: @ViolaGardens
Image Credits
Suzanne Strong, Lauren Purves