Not long ago I did a small exercise with a team. Everyone wrote their name on a piece of paper and passed it around; the others wrote something kind on the back.
Mine came back with:
A woman for all things beautiful. If it has to be beautiful, just ask Jessica.
That one got to me. Because it’s true. Call me photographer, brand designer, web designer, illustrator, entrepreneur. At the core, what I care about is beauty. I want to notice it, create it, make it visible.
Beauty comforts.
It inspires.
It can transform,
and it can bring things back to life.
my story
Wonderful
and messy.
Being human and having a business is wonderful. And messy. There is no success story without a downfall somewhere in it, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you the highlight reel. I’m not. I’m a creative, messy human being trying to build a life I love, one that lets me use my talents and keep seeing, trying and learning new things. Solanimaa is what that looks like as a business.
The short version.
I paid for my own education with side jobs and a student loan, started working as a freelance communication designer, art director and photographer in my fifth semester, and lasted exactly one day inside an advertising agency before deciding that nine-to-five was not for me.
I learned photography in the photo pit of heavy-metal festivals: three songs to get the shot, a screaming crowd at your back, and ten other photographers fighting for the best angle.
I went on to shoot for Mercedes-Benz, Hapag-Lloyd, Xing and Edeka and to exhibit my personal photo projects in three countries.
I founded a model agency at 22, then a packaging company, then grew a small agency into a brand agency that still runs today, without me.
That’s the glamorous part. Here’s the rest:
In my twenties a magazine took a fashion series I photographed off their website, after another photographer accused me of copying her. No questions asked, no chance to answer. I took it personally, and quit fashion photography.
Later I burned out running a brand agency on top of my freelance work and my wholesale company: too many roles, almost no pay, years spent plugging holes that were dug before my time, and a team that turned on me when I started to slip. So yes, I ran myself into the ground on all three playgrounds at once.
Therapy, which I started at 27 and which took years to do its work, eventually showed me the patterns. I had learned to be the good girl: the one who keeps giving, driven by a bad conscience, always trying to get it right and never to fail anyone. All the while I was failing the one person who wasn’t on that list: me. Running my business like that had cost me a lot of time, energy and money.
You have to go through the deep shit and feel all the difficult feelings. There is no easy and quick way out.
I always kept my solopreneur business running, even when I was building startups. It had quite a few different names. Every time I understood myself better, I chose a new one, because it had become a different business, run by a different woman.
Let joy lead.
The most important thing I took from all of it is simple: creativity needs joy. Not as a reward at the end, but as fuel. Every time I worked from fear, guilt or a sense of duty, the work got smaller, and so did I. Every time I followed what delighted me, a flower field, a strange texture, a colour nobody had asked for, the work got better and found the people it was meant for.
Joy is no longer the thing I allow myself once everything else is done. It’s the thing I start with. My business runs on it the way other businesses run on quarterly targets, and I’ve stopped apologising for that.
Along the way I also learned to tell where my energy goes and where it quietly leaks out, and to guard it. I used to fight for everything. I don’t anymore (except when I’m wearing my boxing gloves). I create space for joy and beauty instead.
The woman with
a thousand interests.
I place myself somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum. Besides causing a few challenges, that means I need variety, I want to constantly see, learn and try new things, and complexity is my natural habitat.
I’m the woman with a thousand interests and one focus: aliveness.
The line between private and work is blurry on purpose. I’m a creator in every corner of my life, and the thing I love talking about most is: everything.
the studio
All of that comes together in Solanimaa. For me, the name has three parts.
Sol.
Without question one of the biggest, most important elements in the universe: it gives power and life, dosed right. And I have a very personal relationship with it. I see one of my greatest talents in being a sun for other people: inspiring them with my joy, my lightness and my very own humour, and giving them energy.
Anima.
Because beauty without depth, without soul, is empty. And a person stays a little empty too if they never explore their own soul, never try to find out what fulfils them and what they can fill others with.
Maa.
A reminder to myself of how much the roots matter. Being grounded. The connection to nature and to your own essence. Everything I’ve worked for, uncovered and keep tending, year after year.
This name doesn’t feel like one more rebrand. It feels like the first time a name simply describes what’s already there.
Dessert first.
I play by my own rules. So I have dessert first. I love sweets. And at some point I asked myself why I was following a rule everyone obeys without thinking. Why have the best part last? What if I choke on the main course and never get to taste that dreamy crème brûlée? What if I keep telling myself I’ll do this or that later in life, and then life, or illness, gets there first?
So I have dessert as my starter. And I find the principle just as wonderful everywhere else in life: let joy lead. Let beauty lead. What do you feel like? What inspires you? What makes you feel fulfilled? That’s where your truth lives. And, not by accident, that’s also what works best and lasts.
Cheers, Jessica
Awards
Award name, year
Nominations
Placeholder text for Pen Pals: a few lines about writing letters to each other, what to expect, and how to sign up.
I was made to play in flower fields, sit beneath trees and follow my heart.