I, Jasmine Rosa Emilia Hintsala, commonly known as Jasu, was born on 16 March 1993 in a tiny Finnish village called Oulainen. My family has 13 members: mom, dad, five boys and six girls. I grew up surrounded by people; there were many kids in our neighbourhood, and I often saw my cousins and other relatives. Even so, ever since I was little I have enjoyed being on my own. I used to go and explore unknown places by myself, and I still love to do that today. Often I would rather leave the crowd to have my little adventures in solitude.
A child who was every animal
The forest was my favourite place. There I would spend hours imagining I was the fastest horse in the whole entire world. The hunters were always after me, trying to catch me, but I was the only horse they could never catch. At other times I turned into a tiger, the most skilled hunter that had ever lived. Whenever I went swimming, I was a dolphin or a seal. Around the age of four, I took off all my clothes every day at exactly 6 pm, because animals naturally don’t wear clothes, and ran around the house and the yard like a dog, without using my hands even to eat or drink.
My dad once asked me what I was going to be when I grew up. Without hesitation I blurted out: “A tiger!” Dad laughed and asked: “What do tigers do?” I had a clear answer to that too: “They eat small children, and fat.”
When my dad bought a VHS player when I was about eight, I watched nature documentaries for hours, over and over again. My passion for animals and nature was always intertwined with my passion for drawing, so whenever I picked up a pen, the paper filled with animals. When my mom once saw me watching a nature documentary I hadn’t seen before, she said something like: “And now she’s going to spend the next two weeks drawing those dolphins.” That is exactly what happened.
“Can I have that drawing?”
I hadn’t gone to daycare or preschool, so starting elementary school at seven was the first time I spent my days away from home. One morning I arrived very early, and so had one of my future best friends. A teacher invited us in and gave us paper, pencils and crayons. Happily, I started drawing a large grass field divided by a small stream, with horses grazing on it. I was completely absorbed when the girl next to me gasped: “Woaaah! That’s so beautiful! You can draw so well! Can I have that drawing?” I still remember how surprised and confused I felt. I had always loved drawing, but it had never occurred to me that I was somehow “good at it”. I had simply been drawing because it was so much fun.
My mom used to hide all the drawing paper from me, because I could use up a huge pile of paper in just a couple of hours. So I started drawing on used envelopes and on the backs of paid bills that I found in the kitchen bin.
From third grade on, my teacher and I occasionally argued about my drawing style. When the task was to draw “my day in the forest”, most of my classmates drew themselves, a few trees and perhaps one more thing. I drew myself (probably riding some animal), different kinds of trees, bushes with berries of different colours, pine cones, an anthill and mushrooms, stumps and stones, some with moss and some with smiling faces. And of course animals: a bear lurking behind a tree, a moose, a reindeer, a stag with enormous antlers, a hedgehog having dinner with frogs under big rhubarb leaves, rabbits, a fox chasing a mouse, a woodpecker pecking a tree and squirrels annoyed by the noise, an owl peeking out of its hole, wolves, a lynx and a weasel. Every animal that came to mind had to fit into the scene.
I was always very fast, and even with all those details I rarely left anything unfinished. Still, sometimes my teacher strictly forbade me from adding so many details. Whenever he did, I took my revenge by hastily drawing something far below my skill level. At home I taped several pieces of paper together into one enormous canvas and kept adding detail after detail as new ideas popped into my mind.
Never good enough
As the years went by, the whole school knew about my drawing, and slowly a new element entered it: competition. I had always been the best among my peers, and I felt I had to keep that reputation. In upper secondary school the joy of my childhood began to fade. I still loved making art, but I never felt good enough. Whatever compliments I received, I couldn’t believe them; I kept fixing my eyes on the flaws. School itself came easily to me and my grades were excellent, but my passion was only ever drawing.
Until I was 16, I drew mostly animals, especially horses. Then I discovered manga and anime, which inspired me to create comics with human characters. Becoming a professional comic artist had been my dream since elementary school. Seeing skilled artists online, I wanted, for the first time, to learn to colour my drawings properly. Once a week I went to an art club for teenagers, where an art teacher became the first person ever to give me critique. Hungry to learn, I started digital art, studied the muscles and bones of humans and animals, and my animals began to show more realistic anatomy.
Around the same time my signature “Jasü” appeared. Instead of a regular u, I chose ü, because it seemed to smile.
Finding watercolor
In upper secondary school I discovered watercolors. For most of my life I had disliked them, mostly because of the poor-quality paints at school. But online I saw artists making stunning, detailed watercolor paintings, and the paints were also far cheaper than the markers I wanted but couldn’t afford. My first tries only frustrated me. Then one morning I woke up determined: today I would succeed. And I did. Since that day, watercolor has been my favourite medium.
For years I admired other artists and tried to copy their styles, only to be disappointed and return to my own style, which I still wasn’t happy with. As I approached 18, I was drawing more than ever, but the joy of sharing my work with family and friends was gone. My new passion was art and comics about an imaginary gay couple, and having grown up in a strictly religious family, I was ashamed of them and only shared them online, hidden behind different accounts.
At 19 I moved to Rovaniemi to study at the University of Lapland to become an art teacher, even though teaching didn’t interest me. I only knew that I loved making art, and I didn’t know of any other path.
By 21, thousands of people around the world followed and encouraged my work online, but I still couldn’t find satisfaction. I made art only to be accepted. I couldn’t stop drawing, even when it was tearing me apart, and during the darkest times of my life, making art still gave me a reason to keep going.
Sometimes a person needs to get into total darkness, just so they can learn to shine their own light.
Choosing my own path
At 21 I was diagnosed with severe depression and put on sick leave. I paused my university studies and left them completely the next year, in 2015, to become a full-time artist. My depression brought me to a simple truth: it doesn’t matter which direction I choose in life; all directions have the same endpoint. One day I will die and lose everything. So what do I really have to lose?
I decided to wipe the paper clean and start over. This time I didn’t let fear, insecurity, anxiety and depression write the story for me. I started building a new voice within me, and that voice got to decide what was said and done. One by one, I began facing the fears that had kept me in the darkness for so many years. In 2016 I founded Jasu Wonder World to make a living as an artist. I have faced a lot of opposition and doubt, the greatest of it from within myself, but when I stepped onto this path, I made myself a promise. It has kept me rooted through even the strongest storms:
Whatever comes my way, I’ll not back down. Wherever this artist path takes me, I’ll go. This is the path I choose to die on.
This path has not been without its challenges, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I chose it, and I couldn’t have asked for a more fulfilling life. I have had to face fears that haunted me my whole life, and thanks to that I have become a person I can genuinely be proud of. As a bonus, life keeps opening up new possibilities and experiences, the kind I would never have had if I had stayed on the path of depression. The greatest of them all is knowing that I am living my dream, every single day.
If you would like a more in-depth look at how I have tackled my depression, read my Comic Diary on the Wonder Blog and my first illustrated children’s book, You Surely Have a Long Neck (Onpa sinulla pitkä kaula).