Inspired By
Venice Trees
by Jessica Maccormick
Jessica Maccormick is a social anthropologist and photographer. She is also a founding collaborator for The Garden Edit having shot all the photographic content for its launch. The series Venice Trees continues her ongoing interest in the relationship between people and plants - as evident in The Garden Edit’s first homepage collection, which documented her observations of East London front gardens.
“The windswept shapes of these trees delight me endlessly. You can see their unique interplay of shape, shade and line offsetting buildings and desert lawns alike in the beach cities of L.A. Effortlessly useful, they're drought resistant and characterful, make fantastic hiding places for wildlife and I think they even help scent the night air. They’re also an associative playground. One near my place in Santa Monica looks very much like the thick, wavy hair of cinema's most famous teen vampire. Others I came to think of as underwater sea creatures shaped by current and light. I like that they're a little rogue, slightly shabby even, which works for me in the increasingly upscale vibe of Venice Beach. Poignantly, they connect me with past, much-loved homes in Auckland and London - from my grandparents’ timeless and seemingly never-changing inner city garden, to my Hackney neighbours in London.”