Meet Jasmine Mann

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jasmine Mann a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jasmine, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

The Lotus Grows Through The Mud
The lotus does not perch itself upon the lofty high trees so it may look down upon the world, nor does it daintily waft in the carefree meadow; it grows through the mud. Not around it, not beside it, but through the stinking, wet, bacteria-filled dirt. That is more so than its dazzling is why the multi-pedaled lotus shines so beautiful in this world.

What inspires your art?
This is a common question I get as an artist. I rarely answer completely. That’s because most potential customers want story that makes them feel good. I unfortunately can be too honest than is socially acceptable, so I often brush the question off with not with my story of resilience but an explanation of my art.
I’m effectively a food critic but instead of just writing articles about restaurants, I draw personification of dishes, cocktails, beers, wines I recommend. My neo art nouveau consists of intricate details about my subjects’ history, origin, and ingredients. The goal of my artwork to chip away at corporate hegemony over American food culture by advertising local owned restaurants, bars, and caterers. To best appreciate my art, slow down. The longer you look at it the more you will see, and the better each piece gets.
The above is what I usually say to those who claim to want to know the answer. However, today I’m going to give the much less profitable answer as why I do art at all. I will spare you the goriest of details, but I will warn you that my story rarely makes people feel comfortable. Not just because of the sexual abuse, the racial bigotry, medical torture, and financial turmoil it entails, but because my artist’s journey shines a mirror on common insecurities that many people suppress. Frequently, people want my artistic success to the result of tree high talent so lofty they can rest assured that they could never achieve it if they tried. That or they want my art usher forth from a bohemian carefree existence more romantic than two lovers in the field of flowers. However, my depiction of brightly colored girls advertising various beverages and food blossoms from the mud that abuse, chronic pain, and everlasting pursuit to regain my financial independence as a black, disabled woman in the 21st century.

I was always an artist, and that’s the problem.
A lot parents do not want their children to be career artists. The art is biz is brutal. There are lots of wannabes, few industry jobs, and even fewer legal protections. My love for drawing however predates my conscious memory. I was that kid who would get punished for drawing in class. However, I’d often get away with it because I had a 3.9/4.0+ GPA. My father, siblings, cousins, and classmates, and teachers would eventually get over it, but my mother never really did. She did everything from refusing to let me take art classes in school to nitpicking my art to shreds—literally. I still haven’t forgotten the day she threw my unfinished art in the trash in front of me.
But resilience is more of choice than trait. Drawing wasn’t something I could stop doing; not unless I wanted to lose my sanity. It helped me remember the lectures in school, was the main reason I got accepted into Stanford University, and if—I’m being candid—helped me process the covert sexual abuse that was happening during my childhood years. Part of me wonders if that was one of the reasons my mother didn’t want drawing. It brought me joy and exposed her unspeakable crimes. The largest of these crimes—one that I still have to deal with today—was her medical neglect.
Today I know that I had endometriosis. A condition where material similar but quite different to the lining of the endometrium and ovaries embeds itself in strange places in the body. After reading hundreds of medical studies, listening to dozens of lectures, and ingesting thousands of survivor stories, I am convinced that endometriosis is congenital. It is laid down during embryotic development but does not “turn on” until puberty. The reveal of my symptoms was not subtle. To this day the pain often feels like wooden stakes in the pelvis, acid being poured over my insides, the devil claws trying to rip apart my uterus and internal organs. My mother was a pediatrician that specialized in teen-aged girl heath but whenever I brought my symptoms up the answer was just take more advil. By the time I was in high school was not uncommon for me to go through 30 Advil in a day. All the doctors I spoke to about this issue dismissed my pain as either normal or in my head.
And so my path to resilience was in a way preordained. I had to learn to go to band practice despite feeling like my uterus was going to pop out of me, because I wasn’t really given any other option. If I was to bloom, I couldn’t lay about in the carefree grass of my parent’s estate, I had to grow through the mud; the pain.

The Tech Detour: more money, more health problems.
When I arrived at Stanford I was soon pressured into going into computer science as opposed to what I wanted to do: architecture. I knew in the back of my head that pursuing software was something of a mistake. After much struggle which I touch upon in an article on Zillow’s Engineering Blog ( https://www.zillow.com/tech/paying-forward-recap-nsbe-2017/ ) I worked for Amazon and Zillow and my art would take a back seat.
Despite by my colleagues’ admission being an excellent and prolific coder there were problems under the surface figurately and literally. Figurately because despite growing up in male-dominated environments, the tech world was something else. I was used to raunchy humor, the locker talk, and open-air farts. I was not used to false accusations, the corporate backstabbing, and men couldn’t take no for an answer. Despite all the harassment and HR’s condoning of such deplorable behavior with black-women-are-sexually-aggressive-anyway dog whistles, my tech career was taking off. My desk was full of trophies, my inbox full of accolades, but the literal problems underneath the surface of my skin, would end all of that.
It was around April 2016, that I could no longer deny that something was wrong with my health. In an act of cosmic foreshadowing, it was another artist that brought this to light: Kehinde Wilde. I wanted to go to the Seattle Art Museum to see his art, but after taking 12 advil, I was still bedridden. While curled up, I was forced to realize that this couldn’t be normal. I did some poking around Dr. Google and like 67% of endometriosis survivors diagnosed myself via the internet.
I went to the doctor. She agreed with me until I got a laparoscopy. When I woke up from the surgery, I was told nothing was wrong. That is when all hell broke loose. When I asked her what it could be if not endometriosis, a fresh new round of medically gaslighting begin.
From summer of 2016 through 2017 I would see doctor after doctor, family member after family member. Each one of them determined to prove to me that the pain was just stress, just hormonal, just something I had to live with, but after 17 years of neglect I couldn’t. After my first surgery my pain only got worse. More days in bed. More calling in sick, more gaslighting, more bizarre, ineffectual, and painful treatments that were something out of a B-grade 80’s horror movie. Once one doctor said I couldn’t have endo, most other doctors refused to give me a second opinion. When I asked for more testing, the answer was to just insert the Mirena IUD. I when I asked why they knew the new IUD would help all of the said “it has a localized effect.” A strange thing to say to someone who has body-wide symptoms. A stranger thing to say considering that at the time the makers of the Mirena were being sued for overstating the device’s benefits.
But again, resilience is more a choice than a trait. I still kept going to work. Still kept coding at 2x the speed of most of my coworkers, still kept winning awards, because what else was there to do? The answer was to cry when I could, sleep when I was able. Take advil and cannabis edibles when that was possible, just keep pushing through, and drawing. I started drawing again.
The answer to my health problems was to fly down to California. I went to Vital Health Clinic in the bay area and finally got some answers. They confirmed that the first doctor had misdiagnosed me and left a bunch of damage her wake. It would take two surgeries to clear both the endometriosis and the adhesions from the first botched surgery.
After that, I decided to leave my tech job in part because the pain, but also because I didn’t like what the industry was doing to the city of Seattle, let alone the country, let alone the planet we inhabitant. It paid extremely well, but it was worth leaving the harassment and discrimination for clear conscience. I would spend the next year going from naturopath to physical therapist, to dietician, to M.D. until I moved to be with my then boyfriend to Colorado.
Throughout it all I keep drawing. Through the stabbing pains, I would color, through the twisting torment I would write my magnum opus. Though the acid drenched sensation at my core, I’d hone my drawing skills on my Galaxy Note phone. I had to do all these things; less I lose my sanity. After all the medical gaslighting, all the pain, the lost of well-paying job, and need to move from the coast where I had spent all my life, blossomed a new confidence previously dormant. After surviving that year of hell, I knew that as difficult as it could be I could be an artist if I so choose.

Not quite out of the mud
And so that is my long-winded answer as what inspires my art. My resilience comes from a choice to be so and that is why I create my art. Both are the only way for me to live. I let myself breakdown, but not indefinitely because the dishes had to be down. I cry in bed, but make sure to not for too long less I do not finish that commission.
Since my health battle, my troubles are far from over. After the surgery came an abusive boyfriend who I had to flee from in the middle of the night for fear of domestic violence. While hoping from hotel to hotel, I kept drawing and posting my art online. After a great lawyer won back the possessions and money he stole, came the crocked restaurateur. His plan to force me to make him art and social media posts for free failed when I exposed his lies in small-claims court. His mold-infected food taught me that good food is worth drawing. Then came false-ally charity owner that tried to use me and my art in a tax fraud scheme. She’s likely having to answer for her crimes to IRS as I draw characters she’ll never appropriate. There would be other adversaries that came my way, but none so powerful as to break me and stop me from making my art because I choose to let myself stumble but to never stay down indefinitely.
Through all of that, I have met amazing, kind people who—unlike the posers of my past—are the real deal. My art that personifies local food and beverages has been very successful. If weren’t for the medical and tax debt I still owe, I would one of the few people out that could 100% subsist on my art. I’ll still be paying down this debt over the next year or two, working my day job, my night jobs, and doing the odd commission, to make things financially work. However, you can bet that through it all, I’ll be drawing, I’ll be writing, and I’ll be creating because resilience not about being tough, or refusing to be weak, it’s always choosing to find a way to grow not around struggle, not besides turmoil, but through the unpretty mud of this world so that we may blossom something beautiful.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

On the internet I go by the name M. J. Star. I am a digital artist who is currently living in Colorado. My art pulls influence from 20th century American cartoonists, 21st century anime, Art Nouveau, and modern street art. The result is a combination of bold lines, vibrant colors, and strong symmetrical composition that celebrates the culinary arts.

Unlike most artists who draw still life, I use my art to educate people on the origin of their food. I start most of art pieces on site while enjoying the food portrayed. I take care to speak with the wait staff, bartenders, cooks, and owners to learn what their food is about. Consequentially, my pieces–which take anywhere from 12-80 hours to create–do more than show the finished dish, wine, beer, cider, or cocktail; they actively depict the ingredients, tasting notes, and agricultural sources of these tasteful subjects.

I create my art to connect others to food and the people who cook and serve that food. As the world becomes more digital, it’s my goal to use my digital art to rekindle the two analog things we all need: bio-culture and the social networks they create.

Most of my art can been seen on mjstarart.com. This year I am working on publishing my first art book: Color me a bartender. This is cocktail recipe book is also a coloring book featuring my original art and IBA recipes.

If want to hear when this book with drop, or just wish to support my work, the best thing you can do is go to https://mjstarart.com/bold and sign up for my email list.

I am on Instagram (@m.j.star.art) but the algorithm rarely shows my art to my new followers. Additionally, Facebook & Co are stealing artists work without asking for their consent, giving them credit, or paying out compensation so they can train their environmentally damaging and wage depressing AI tools. This something that as a 20-year veteran of digital art I personally do not condone. I encourage all art lover to sign up for their beloved artist email lists if they haven’t already.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. There is no replacement for hard work. Hard work does not guarantee success but acting like a spoil prince(ss) almost always guarantees failure. In my experience, the only artists that truly fail are the ones that give up doing their art because it was “too hard.” If you are trying to be a professional artist understand that an Art Business is three parts A-R-T and eight parts B-U-I-S-N-E-S-S. That means most of your time you will be running a business: acquiring clients, doing inventory, installing art, selling in person, doing spreadsheets, filing A LOT of taxes. You’re lucky if you spend more than a third of your workday in the studio.
If selling you art is killing your creative spirit, there is no shame in getting a day job and doing your art on the side. You don’t have to be a full-time professional to be successful—just look at Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo. Remember you are an artist not a corporate suit. You don’t make art to make money, you make money so you can make more art. A true artist on their deathbed, regrets the art they didn’t make more so than the money they didn’t make.

2. If you are trying to sell art or gain prestige in the art world you must make human-to-human connections. Art is not the image; art is how people feel about the image. Posting to Instagram or Tik-Tok might boost your dopamine, but unless you become a micro-celebrity, people on these digital platforms will rarely care about your art. Do not let any internet guru tell you otherwise; there is no replacement for face-to-face connections. Although understandable, it is entitled to believe that you should get someone’s hard-earned money without having the fortitude to look them in the eye and answer their questions. You can do it, but most career artists shouldn’t count on it.

3. Come up with scripted answers to questions. Expect people to ask you the same questions THOUSANDS of times over. Expect to on rare occasions get offensive questions. In my experience, the general public admires but is clueless about visual art. They believe in a eugenic-y myth that artistic talent is something you are born with, when it’s just thousands of hours of work, proper instruction, and self-discovery. Coming up with canned, pre-packaged answers greatly helps when dealing with this well-intentioned ignorance. If a question stomps you, don’t worry. Wait till the day is over, gather yourself, and come up with a script for the next time someone asks this question.
Also, if answering a question triggers anger, annoyance, or other negative emotions experiment with your scripted answers to see which ones work. Often switching the order of words greatly changes people’s response. For example, if I say “I draw personifications of BEER, food, cocktails, and wine” people will assume that I only draw beer, sober people will refuse to look at my nonalcoholic art, and some might go so far as to accuse me of being an early-stage alcoholic. If I say “I draw personifications of FOOD, beer, cocktails, and wine,” people will actually see the diversity of my work and sober people will purchase my art.
I advise that you answer all questions unless they are truly invasive or offensive. I’ve been told many times that as a black woman I have no business drawing white people. It’s taken me awhile, but now I know that if anyone shames me by saying “people like you shouldn’t make art like that” they don’t deserve my time, my energy, and most of my art. It’s okay in this instance to smile, tell them that the transaction is over, and wish them a good day. Once you do have scripts for how to navigate the insensitive, the offensive, and more asinine questions, the bullies of this world sense that from you and will stop wasting your time with such statements. Then you can concentrate on those that deserve the joy your art brings into this world.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

My main obstacle between me and making more art is my medical and tax debt from all the surgery I accrued during my endometriosis journey. To overcome this, I am working multiple jobs as I work on my first art book. Some might view this as a failure, I just view it as the reality of being an early career artist. Because of the lack of legal protections against people who steal artists’ work and labor, becoming a successful visual artist is a journey that often spans decades not months. Art can pay my bills just not the debt at this point in my career. So, I need to take a break from my art markets and social media, just do art for fun for the next year or two. I’m still drawing and taking commissions as they come, and that’s what’s important. All I have to do to feel confident is look back on what I have already accomplished, and I know that so long as I keep drawing success in some fashion is inevitable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mjstarart.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/m.j.star.art
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/mjstarart
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/mannjasmine

Image Credits

All art and photographs are mine.

Me holding art: At Longmont’s Shoes and Brews. I drew the Peach Strawberry Wheat Ale
Mice: Commission for A Kitchen Mouse Bakery. They are making her priced cinnamon rolls
Flower: Still living fabulously well, a California poppy growing in the desert.

You can get the image titles and details by going to these links
Purple Lady with the hair flowing up: https://mjstarart.com/products/abbott-and-wallace-out-of-this-world-mai-tai
Blue lady with flowing curly hair: https://mjstarart.com/products/ms-neptune
Indigenous Woman holding baby: https://mjstarart.com/products/four-directions-american-mother
Halloween Bar scene: https://mjstarart.com/products/longmont-halloween
Mushroom Girl: https://mjstarart.com/products/princess-mushroom
Peanut Butter Milk Stout: https://mjstarart.com/products/left-hand-peanut-butter-milk-stout