A conversation with artist Jenna Marie Hansen on hope, hygge, and turning routines into rituals. (Instagram: @jennamariehansen)
“I think you can turn life and living itself into an art.”
Jenna Marie Hansen is a Danish-American artist who grew up in Michigan and now works out of a studio in San Francisco’s Hunters Point Shipyard. Her paintings are built from a single continuous line, drawn without lifting the pen, to capture the invisible energy between people.
For our Apothecary collection, she turned that line toward the herbs in our tea blends. Her botanicals wrap the borosilicate glass Tea Infuser and appear on the Solstice candle box: a mosaic of chamomile, dandelion, and leafy herbs, left open enough that you can see in them whatever you like.
Below, Jenna talks coastal road trips, painting as a way to slow down, and the evening tea she keeps coming back to.
What draws your eye this time of year, in the studio or out in the city?
I’m always inspired by anything in transition. It’s late October, and I love leaves changing, in every state they’re in. The golds and reds are beautiful, but I also love the crispy leaves on the ground: the smell, the sound, all of the sensorial parts of it.
San Francisco is magical in the fall. You cross the bridge and there are so many amazing trails. But it stays pretty mild, so when I need a change of season, I take a road trip south. I love the little coastal towns that are quirky and have their own personality.
Where do you stop along the way?
Ojai is my go-to. Whenever I drive down to LA, I make a pit stop there to break up the trip and have a little solo time. Something about Ojai is like an exhale for me. I stay at the Hummingbird Inn, which has the perfect headboards for propping up a thin canvas. I travel with paintings in my back seat because you never know. I’ve actually sold a painting from my trunk. A legit trunk show.
I also love Montecito. It’s smaller and more local than Santa Barbara, and the energy is so calm. If you’re coming from LA, stop in Summerland first. It’s tiny, with a sweet bookstore (Godmothers) that hosts events, plus decor shops, plant shops, and boutiques.
Is there a scent that instantly takes you somewhere?
Woodsy smells: cedar, pine, birch. They always remind me of growing up in the forested areas of Michigan. I love the santal in the Solstice candle for that reason. It gives you an earthy, grounded scent that feels like a walk through the forest.
There’s something warm and cozy about it. The Danes have a concept called ‘hygge’ (pronounced HOO-guh): that cozy, cuddled-up feeling you get from candles, soft lighting, a warm blanket, a fireplace. Tea is a huge one. Woodsy scents bring me right into that feeling.
It’s probably why I paint mostly on wood. When I tear the plastic off a new panel, I get this whiff that feels nostalgic. With a really beautiful burl full of knots, it feels like there’s an art piece under the art.
Your work is built from a single continuous line. Where did that begin?
I started painting as a kind of somatic therapy. I needed something meditative to calm my nervous system, and I never intended to show or sell any of it. A therapist gave me homework to draw my feelings. I was really low energy at the time (I’d had an injury, a breakup, and then the pandemic), so I did the simplest thing possible: a single-line drawing of a sad girl. His reaction was so amazing that it encouraged me to do a whole series, all in one line.
With a single line, you can’t stop and think, because the marker bleeds if you pause. You just have to feel and keep moving in a way that feels good. Now I draw multiple figures in one pencil line on canvas or wood, play with positive and negative space in paint, then layer one more line on top. That line is the energy: the invisible thing you feel when you connect with someone. Some paintings feel meditative and smooth, and others are totally chaotic and fun. There’s no right or wrong.
What did it feel like to draw the botanical print for our Apothecary collection?
The word that comes to mind is hope. I’m really drawn to mosaics, because there’s something hopeful about fragments of something finding a second life by coming together in an unexpected way. I felt that drawing the botanicals. These bits and pieces of plants each had one life, and when they come together, they have a totally unexpected second life.
Which plants can we find in the drawing?
I like all of my work to be abstract enough that it can take different forms for whoever’s viewing it, so it can be whatever you want it to be. There’s chamomile, and I was also thinking about dandelion in its last chapter of life, when it’s all white and powdery and you blow on it to make a wish.
Do you grow anything yourself?
Yes! I have a Nook in my tiny 611-square-foot apartment. I’ve grown everything from butter lettuce to curly kale to tulsi, and right now I’m growing dwarf tomatoes, with peppers popping up too. I also grow edible flowers, but they’re too beautiful to eat, so I wrap them into little bouquets whenever I visit a friend.
What surprised me was how much wonder and awe it brings me. Waking up every day and witnessing something grow is a reminder of the passage of time, and there are seeds of hope in it. When I see the first tomato starting to form, I get so excited. At the grocery store, everything is already done, and we’re so focused on efficiency and consumption. There’s something beautiful about stepping away from that and focusing on creation.
Is there an herb you’re experiencing in a new way?
Tulsi. The smell was not what I expected. Even just walking by, I catch whiffs of something I’d never experienced before, and the purple-white flowers are beautiful and unexpected. I’d also never had living tea. A fresh, live tea is so different from something dried in a tea bag. Who knows how old that is?
It’s empowering to become your own apothecarian, with a little apothecary in your home where you can mix and blend things and nurture yourself. I kind of want to turn my Nook into a full apothecary. Maybe I need one for food and one just for herbs. It’s so cool to grow these precious, sacred herbs that are usually hard to find.
Do you have a favorite blend?
Nightfall. It has dandelion, holy basil, and lemon balm, my three favorites. I love it all day, and there’s something really grounding about the nuttiness. The dandelion is a little bitter, but I like earthy and bitter more than citrusy or flowery, and I add a lot of manuka honey. It’s almost desserty, so I love it after a meal.
Walk us through your ideal wind-down this time of year.
Screens off, phone away, no blue light. Ideally I’m in a cozy cabin in the mountains, lit by candles and lamps, with the fireplace crackling. There’s a woodsy cedar candle burning, and I’m lying down sipping tea with a red light mask on. Someone is also giving me a pedicure and maybe a massage.
Lately I’ve been loving Many Lives, Many Masters. I find the ideas about past lives fascinating, and there’s a lot of self-discovery that goes along with them.
What do you hope someone feels when they unwrap the Solstice Candle or Herbal Tea Infuser as a gift?
Presence. So often we’re living in the future or the past, and it’s hard to feel present in any given moment. I hope the scent is unique enough that it brings them right into the moment, being here now.
And hope. Hope can be really hard to find once you think you’ve lost it. The mosaic of plants, herbs, and flowers coming together to form a new life mirrors so many other areas of life, where you might feel broken or be going through a transition. We heal together. A candle and tea are one way to slow things down, turn routines into rituals, and take a moment for yourself.
I love the quote “Let them fall in love with your overflow.” When you fill your own cup, you become the best version of yourself for everyone else. You can only pour from a full cup.
Your Instagram bio says “the art of life.” What does that mean to you?
It’s all about turning routines into rituals. The way a person moves through the world is an art: your handwriting, the way you communicate, the way you walk, the way you dress. Every single thing you do is a form of expression. A lot of the time we’re robotic and rushing. But if we slow down, pause, and wonder what we’re all in such a rush for, I think you can turn life and living itself into an art.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything. Life gets a little more magical when you take the things that feel like chores and ask, how can I do this in a beautiful way?
What’s next for you?
I’m about halfway through a body of work called Trust Beyond Logic: black on wood with a gold line. The feeling there is hope again. It’s about trusting your intuition beyond logic, because our logic as humans is limited, and sometimes it’s confining instead of expansive. It’s trusting that the universe is working in your favor, even when it isn’t obvious yet.
Where can people see more of your work?
My Instagram, @jennamariehansen, is updated most often, and my website is jennamariehansen.com. My work is for sale, including the painting in my back seat.
Bring Jenna’s botanicals home with the Apothecary collection tea infuser and Solstice candle, and brew her favorite, the Nightfall tea blend.
