Don’t give em the gift

We’ve got gifts, my lord we got gifts. We try to be charitable because we’ve got em in spades.

But we’ve got to learn to go where our gifts can be gotten, because there is nothing like being gotten after a lifetime of not being gotten. Shit you could say sometimes we give our gifts and love to people who intentionally try to misunderstand us and distort our sense of self by proxy.

there’s nothing quite like a life spent in the void of being kept at arms length, a life spent persevering through unneeded futility relationally. At a certain point trying to earn the admiration, respect and trust of people who dangle love like a carrot at the end of a stick is self harm.

And there’s enough pain in this life, enough struggle we don’t need the pain of trying to be loved by people that don’t have the capacity to love or get us to the capacity we deserve to be gotten.

We associate love with futility, color it learned, liken it to karma, describe it as ancestral trauma. And maybe that’s the greater purpose is to learn to give our gifts to the people who want our gifts in the first place. 🎁

——

I feel ashamed of these words, I feel self righteous with these words. But im trying to learn to express and trust the message unabashedly.

Color me radically self expressed color, me radical self accepted.

I love me dearly, I hope you love you dearly

SketchPad: 10/16 2:01

Over the last few years, I’d gotten myself in a bit of a snag where I was, to use a business term, working on the business, not in the business.

I was booking myself solid. Between my day job and mural gigs, I was fully booked out. And for the work I did do, whether it was blog posts, newsletters, or anything for SMH, I had such a perfectionism about it that I sucked all the air out of the room. The magic of drawing disappeared.

So I stepped back. I gave myself permission to entertain the idea of not being an artist because I’d been so heavily defined by that identity for, well, my whole life.

What does Stephen look like when he’s not an artist?

I relaxed for about three months, and then I let drawing come back to me.

I think the spirit of it all was that whatever comes next, drawing needs to be front and center. There are so many possible directions to go, so many possible things to do. But drawing needs to be the main thing, whatever that thing ends up being.

So, with that being said, I set out to draw.

I’ve done observational studies for as long as I can remember, but it never felt quite right doing them digitally. Eventually, I started going to the diner and drawing some still lifes, as you’ve seen if you’ve been following the blog.

More recently, though, I let myself go wherever things were going to go. Last night, I ended up drawing a woman from a screensaver on my TV, along with whatever this crazy, buffet-greasy, drooling thing is. Let’s call him The Drooler.

The Drooler and the purple woman don’t have much meaning. They’re goofy. And honestly, I think I need a little more of that when I draw.

A little more time to have fun. A little more room to experiment and discover how to move my visuals forward without worrying so much about what everything is supposed to mean.

And I think that goes hand in hand with an apple study or a crystal study, like the ones you see here.

That’s the juice I’m starting to find in all of this.

Looking back at everything I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I think I was so fixated on rebranding, rebuilding the site, and putting out the newsletter that I lost sight of exploration.

Now, I’m spending about two days of my drawing week moving projects forward, and the other four days exploring. That might mean drawing a cartoon character, experimenting with my personal style, or doing an observational study.

Whatever it is, I’m letting my passion for drawing lead the way. And I’m curious to see where that takes me.

I’m also thinking a lot about writing, about putting things out into the world consistently, and about the mark I want to make. I’m thinking about how I want to showcase my art a little more intentionally than ever before.

But let’s save that discussion for another day.

Thank you for reading. As always, have a good one.

I love myself. I hope you do too.

Representing Form Through Color & Value

Hay y’all

Me and a lady friend went picking apples for some fall festivities this past weekend, and I figured I might as well make an art opportunity out of it. So I decided to do a study of the apples.

It’s been really interesting because I’ve been doing many more portraits lately. But I started this whole new series, or practice, of observational work by drawing objects, and the way you approach drawing a human is just so different from the way you approach drawing an object. The focus is different.

Portraiture is also, by nature, much more humbling than drawing an object. So it felt nice to do this apple study and feel somewhat relieved from the anxiety I sometimes get when I’m trying to capture someone’s likeness and wondering whether I’m going to make them look like a monster. If that makes sense.

So anyway, here’s my apple study. Trying to get a little festive with it. Trying to keep consistent.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I’m really good at digging into the details and making a whole two-hour study. But one thing I really want to mess with is: how do I do a 15-minute color study? How do I do a 30-minute color study? I can do a 15-minute line drawing, but how do I do a 15-minute color study and still produce a good result?

And I think that ties into this whole idea of style. For whatever reason, I feel like I’m going to find my style through observational work and through quicker studies, because you have to make quicker decisions. You don’t have time to overthink every little thing.

Another thing that’s really interesting is watching the line disappear.

I grew up as a cartoonist, so I’m always thinking about representing form through line. But now we’re talking about representing form through value and color. And with this study in particular, I’m trying to let the line disappear.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

Crushed & Lifted

This diptych came to me the same way all good art ideas come to me: I felt it coming on like a wave.

I saw somebody with their eyes bulging, getting crushed by a giant arm. And then I thought, “Oh, I like the imagery of a huge hand descending from the sky. What about a hand holding somebody, helping them ascend into the sky?”

I love that.

I love duality. I love symbolism. I love visual storytelling.

And it also comes at a very serendipitous time, as just about everything seems to for me.

So hey, maybe I’m just a magical thinker. Or maybe I just like to wax intellectual about magical thinking all day long. That is still to be determined.

But this one comes at a time when I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships. Maybe I always am, but lately it feels like I’m truly exiting the remnants and behaviors of my twenties. Some of the people from that period of my life are falling by the wayside, while a new crop of people, and a new way of behaving in relationships, is coming into my life.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how people make me feel. I’ve been thinking about how I show up in relationships. And I’ve become increasingly aware of how trapped I can feel in certain relationship cycles.

I’m thinking about who I can and can’t be around certain people. How I can express myself. How I can’t express myself. How much of myself I feel like I’m allowed to bring to the table.

And I’m trying to gravitate more toward the relationships that prop me up rather than push me down.

Not for a selfish reason. This isn’t about never wanting to feel unpleasant feelings, and it certainly isn’t about judging anybody.

It’s more about something I’ve been thinking about while reading Necessary Endings. To paraphrase the idea from the book, we want to get as much as we can out of life. We want to feel as good as we can. We want to feel affirmed, understood, appreciated, and gotten. We want to uplift, and we want to be uplifted.

We don’t want to be put down, and we don’t want to put people down.

And the book makes an interesting distinction: we aren’t necessarily just pruning relationships because they’re toxic. Sometimes we’re pruning relationships that simply aren’t helping us become better.

We’re making room for better to come in.

I don’t know about you, but I have spent a lot of my life feeling like somebody wanted me to be less than, whether that was intentional or not.

I don’t really like pointing fingers. I don’t really like making a fuss out of these kinds of things. So whether feeling less than in somebody’s presence is a matter of objective truth or simply my perception is, in some ways, irrelevant.

I think we need to trust our intuition when we consistently feel less than around certain people.

And sometimes there isn’t even anybody to blame.

Sometimes a season is simply over.

Maybe we’ve learned or taken all we can from someone at this particular point in our lives. And by pruning the flower now, maybe we’re actually making room for a better connection with that same person somewhere down the road.

So this isn’t necessarily about who’s coming and who’s going.

It’s about maintaining a consistent awareness of who we want to be around, who we want to become, and how we want our relationships to make us feel.

And I want to emphasize something else, too.

We are not just the people getting crushed.

We are not just the people being raised up.

We are also doing the crushing.

We are also doing the raising.

I never want to express myself from the perspective of a victim, or from the perspective of somebody who doesn’t take full responsibility for their part in the reality of a situation. Relationships are reciprocal. We affect people just as much as they affect us.

Maybe that’s part of the duality I was drawn to in this image in the first place.

One hand can crush.

One hand can lift.

And sometimes, depending on where we are in our lives, we are the person underneath the hand. Other times, we’re the hand.

Anyway, this drawing came to me, and I thought it was beautiful.

I hope you enjoy it.

Xoxo

SMH

Sitting Down With Nikki

I got a chance recently to sit down with Nikki, we had been Facebook friends for quite some time, another one of those people I had an appreciation for for a while just never really connected

She would post these really cool Fallout 4 world creations, and she seemed to be into cool music and all sorts of other things too.

So needless to say, we eventually got together, and Nikki sat for me for about three hours.

Great time. Great conversation.

It just makes me think there are beautiful people everywhere and wonderful conversations to be had all the time. Maybe thats obvious

But to be a little redundant with my last portrait, I also want to champion something I’m currently working through as an artist: learning to trust the process.

With this kind of work, at least for me, the portrait doesn’t look good for probably 98% of the time. I’m slowly building a foundation the entire time, and then somehow, right at the very end, it all starts to come together. What looked like a mess suddenly takes shape in the last few moments.

You really have to trust that what you’re doing is going to get you somewhere.

Interestingly, Nikki told me that she used to draw as well, but she struggled with the same kind of uncertainty. She might do one really good portrait, but then the next one wouldn’t turn out the way she wanted. She didn’t feel like she could reliably reproduce the result.

That really resonated with me.

I used to have the same experience. I’d make one really good portrait, feel like I’d figured something out, and then the next one would kind of suck. I’d get discouraged, feel bad about myself as an artist, and eventually give up.

But I think there are actually two lessons in that.

The first is that being able to produce one good result isn’t the same thing as having developed a reliable skill.

The second is that sometimes I simply didn’t stick with the process long enough for the idea to fully mature. I would judge the work while it was still becoming itself.

Both of those feel like pretty mature takeaways to me.

So yes, as an artist, I’d like to be able to make a really good portrait.

But more importantly, I want to develop the skills and the patience to make a good portrait again. And again. And again.

I want to be able to trust that I can reproduce that quality level, not because every portrait will be perfect, but because I’ve built a foundation strong enough to give myself a real chance of getting there.

That’s something I’m keeping in mind as I continue these studies.

Sitting Down With Tyler

I got a chance to sit down with a dear friend, Tyler, today.

Do you ever have that feeling where you never really got a chance to get super close to or hang out with somebody, but anytime you’d see them for a moment, you’d end up having some enjoyable conversation? You just kind of develop this shared, mutual respect without ever really knowing each other that well.

Tyler was definitely one of those people.

I’ve known the dude for probably a little over a decade at this point, and I never really got the chance to sit down and pick his mind. But I always got the sense there was a lot more under the hood.

Sure enough, I got to sit down with Tyler today. He volunteered to be drawn when I put an ad out on social media looking for people to draw, and I obliged. He was my first subject, as it were.

And I gotta say, I was not disappointed in my conversation with Tyler.

The conversation had both depth and breadth. We touched on all things life: video games, music, anime, gardening, hiking, and the deep esoteric. It was nice to just let the conversation be free-flowing and see where it went.

It’s also interesting to sit around with somebody for two hours who you’ve never really spent that kind of time with before.

That’s always something I think about before I do these portraits: whether or not the person is going to be able to endure sitting there, being looked at, for that long. I certainly don’t know if I could do it.

My ADHD mind needs to be doing something.

And honestly, sitting down with somebody and drawing is how I hang out. It’s how I quiet my mind.

So it was a really nice afternoon.

I’m thankful I finally got the chance to catch up with Tyler, and I’m also really thankful that I’ve gotten to do so many of these studies now. I’ve been doing them consistently enough that they’re starting to feel like their own little practice—a reason to sit down with someone, look at them closely, draw them, and actually spend some time together.

And I think that’s pretty special.

Weekly Observational Study: The Ugly Part

Just finished up my weekly observational study at the diner, and I kind of ran out of things I wanted to draw on the table.

I had drawn a coffee cup, a sugar dispenser, some packets of jelly. I started thinking, Well, what more of the condiments can I draw? What’s going to be fun?

So I realized maybe it was time to start bringing some of my own props.

I was a little nervous about it. I didn’t want them to get on me for bringing something into the diner, but I decided to bring a LaCroix can.

There’s something really beautiful about the way light bounces off aluminum, especially the aluminum of a LaCroix can. You can see more of the actual metal than you might on something like a Coke can. The printing almost feels transparent in places, so the aluminum itself comes through. Light just dances across it.

But what I really want to talk about today isn’t the LaCroix.

It’s the ugly part.

While I was painting this, I felt something more strongly than I have during any of the other studies I’ve done here. There’s a point in the painting where the whole thing is just fucking ugly.

And the confusing part is that you’re actually doing everything right.

That’s one of the strange things about observational painting, especially when you’re doing color studies. So much of color is about context. You might be painting a beautiful reflection on the aluminum, but if you haven’t painted the top of the can yet, or the tab, or the hole where you drink out of it, that beautiful reflection doesn’t necessarily look beautiful anymore.

It doesn’t have anything to relate to.

The individual pieces don’t make sense until the whole picture starts coming together.

And I think there’s something really profound about that.

Because there’s a point in almost any endeavor where you’re doing the right things, but you don’t have enough context yet to see that you’re doing the right things.

And that’s where you start second-guessing yourself.

Am I doing this right?

Did I make the right decision?

Do I actually have the skills to do this?

Maybe this isn’t working.

And I think that kind of skepticism can pull you out of the moment.

Instead of listening to your intuition and continuing to do the work, you start watching yourself do the work. You start analyzing every decision. You start wondering whether you’re supposed to be here at all.

And that’s the point where fear can take over.

But if you can get through that part—if you can let go of the need to know whether you’re doing it right—you get to something else.

Trust.

And after trust, flow.

Your senses sharpen. You start seeing the colors more clearly. You start noticing subtle differences you couldn’t see before. You stop trying to force the painting into existence and start responding to what is actually in front of you.

And I think this happens in everything.

Basketball. Boxing. Writing. Painting. Building a business. Learning an instrument. Really anything you care enough about to become good at.

There’s going to be a part where your work doesn’t have context yet.

It doesn’t look good.

Nobody understands it.

Maybe nobody is paying attention.

Maybe even you don’t fully understand it.

And I think that’s where a lot of people give up.

We tend to frame our passions around the moments when we arrive. We imagine the finished painting. The championship. The book on the shelf. The followers. The abundance. The paycheck.

We imagine the destination.

But we don’t always prepare ourselves for the part where we’re standing in the middle of the fucking mess.

The part where we’re not sure.

The part where our work looks ugly.

The part where we’re putting pieces into place without being able to see the final picture yet.

Maybe that’s actually where the strength is built.

Maybe the practice isn’t just about learning how to paint an aluminum can.

Maybe these studies are a meditation on getting through the uncomfortable part without abandoning yourself.

Learning to tolerate ambiguity.

Learning to trust your intuition when you don’t have enough evidence yet.

Learning to keep going when the picture hasn’t come together.

Because eventually, if you stay with it, the context arrives.

The pieces start talking to each other.

And suddenly, what looked ugly ten minutes ago makes sense.

So maybe that’s what I’m practicing here.

Not just painting.

Persevering.

Having patience with the part of the process where I can’t yet see what it’s going to become.

Maybe you can practice that, too.

You’re Not Worth Much Unless You’re Selling It

You’re Not Worth Much Unless You’re Selling It

Am I worth less as an artist if there’s not a monetary value attached to what I make?

How come commerce and talent have become so inextricably bound?

I’m not saying I don’t want to make a living doing what I love. I do. I believe our passions can also be our careers.

But I also believe we contain multitudes far beyond what someone is willing to pay us. Far beyond how an algorithm responds to our output. Far beyond whether or not you can throw an advertisement on what I produce.

I refuse to let that be where the story ends.

I refuse to let a marketing strategy, or whether or not I made the front page become the final arbiter on my worth as an artist.

As long as I can remember, I’ve sold my art.

And, if I’m being honest, for almost as long as I can remember, I’ve tied my sense of worth as an artist to its income and its outcome, to the opportunities it created, the attention it received.

I’m tired of carrying that equation around.

That isn’t to say I don’t want to profit from my work. It isn’t to say I don’t believe in building a sustainable creative career. I do.

But I also think there’s something sacred that gets lost when every drawing, every painting, every idea has to justify itself with a dollar sign before it earns the right to exist.

Lately I’ve been trying something different.I’m taking a walk on the wild side. I’m trying to see again.

I’m breaking down the walls, throwing out the guardrails, kicking away the training wheels, and allowing myself to make work simply because something inside me wants to make it.

Art is my dowsing rod.

It has always been the thing that helps me discover what’s buried beneath the surface. It points toward meaning. Toward healing. Toward spirituality. Toward questions I didn’t even know I was asking.

It has always been so much more than a product, so much more than a consumer debt elimination tool.

This morning I sat in a diner for three hours, doing a still life. These were the thoughts that came to me as I walked out the door, these were the thoughts that stayed with me.

Maybe the value of our work isn’t something we discover after someone is willing to buy it.

Maybe some of its greatest value exists long before anyone else ever sees it, in the moment we get to share with it.

Because we live in a world today where every second is spoken for and every penny has its purpose.

What if our art was just for us for a few moments every now and again? What if we started rejuvenating ourselves with our art the way we invigorate all of our fans and patrons?

The beautiful thing is it doesn’t have to be a What if.

Seeing Things Different

Long time, no see. Long time, no talky.

I’m starting this blog back up because I want to start putting something into the world again.

For a long time, I tried to keep up with Instagram, YouTube, newsletters, you name it. I genuinely enjoyed those things, but I also have a pretty strong perfectionist streak. I found myself spending more and more time building the business I thought I needed, and less and less time actually making art. Looking back, that’s been a pattern for as long as I can remember.

This past year has been one of the most pivotal years of my life because I finally put my foot down. I slowed down, took a breath, and started asking what actually needed to change.

I’ve gone by SMH for the last decade. They’re my initials, and that name has served me well. But I reached a point where I realized I needed to stop asking how to grow that version of myself and start asking what comes next.

For the past year, I’ve been working with a mentor, trying to find the direction I was really looking for. I feel like I’ve finally started to find it.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is simple: the art and the message have to come first. Before the algorithms. Before the social media strategy. Before the metrics. Before the business systems. Before the money. If I don’t protect the joy of making the work itself, none of the rest of it matters.

So I’m starting small.

For now, I’ll be sharing weekly studies simple drawings where I sit down and try to see the world a little more clearly. They aren’t perfect, and they don’t have to be. They exist because I made them.

Over time, I hope to share more here: thoughts from my book, newsletters, and whatever else grows naturally from this process.

More than anything, I just want to fall in love with making art again.

Thanks for stopping by. You’ll be hearing from me again soon.

Just did a drawing of Beebz from the game demon turf

Here’s my first original piece of the year and a neat little comic strip idea I had about the power of trendy marketing! A copy of this will be included with any purchase in the merch store while supplies last!

Happy New Year, Happy Bald Spot

Happy New Year and happy bald spot! I just shaved my head—no more curls, no more bald spots!

This post is more of a journal than anything, just me trying to get a vision for the year ahead.

Last year was great overall, and I have a clear sense of where I’m at. My client work is going well, but my personal cartoons, my pride and joy, have been so hard to get off the ground.

I recently revamped my website and business systems, which I’m so proud of. But when I think about how I’ve been sharing my cartoons, it feels lacking. Instagram and maker's markets aren't giving me the joy or results I want, yet I keep doing them, hoping for a different outcome.

I’ve realized I tend to choose the path of most resistance—overloading myself with needless work before diving into what I truly love. Maybe I’ve made my art harder to find with idealistic expectations of how I want it to be received.

This year, I want to do things differently. I want to ditch the long drives, the markets, and the pressure of social media. I’m focusing on YouTube—making and sharing as much art as I can, documenting the process, and sharing my thoughts. I also want to create content about what inspires me—like video games and maybe some One Piece—and I’ll make cool little cartoons to go with!

I’ve tried hard to direct people from Instagram to my merch store, but it rarely works. Maybe YouTube and newsletters will be just as challenging, but I’m ready to take a completely new approach to making and sharing my work.

Here’s to turning a new leaf!

xoxo Psychic Steve

We do it because we love it

We do it because we love it. Thats how!

Here I find myself writing at 12:30 am after having checked my grown up responsibilities off the list. I’m Working during the hour that would be leisure time in order to get my newsletter out on time. Did I mention that I’m sick? 

 This little vignette is somewhere I find myself often. Frequently burning the candle at both ends to pay the bills, keep my body and mind right, to give the people I love the attention they deserve and do this art thing. Here I am both trying to squeeze an illustration out and compose the first draft of this very blog.

I think many of us find ourselves here.

   There’s a part of this that feels insane to me, especially when I look at the metrics and all of 12 people read this? Why not just hang it up and watch big daddy with my lady? Why not cash it all in? Especially because we live in the age of entertainment and short attention spans so who’s going to read this?  But I choose to be honest with my passion, my passion may lack a certain virality.  That is a pill I’ve had to swallow. 

  What I want for myself doesn’t fit within the 30 second attention span that all of social media is trying to cater to, and maybe if I just bent the knee a little more, did a few trends here or there, did Inktober or whatever it’s called every year thing’s would be different for me. But I don’t have much time left to do this at the end of my day, and I don’t want to spend the little time I do have chasing trends. 

Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes we have to work with no end in sight and even when we do we still don’t get the attention or respect we feel we are due. This is why I am writing, I’m not writing this because I’m discouraged, I’m writing this to reframe the goal. 

I don’t make art to get people to click a heart button on their screen, I didn’t start drawing when I was four to obsessively worry how the algorithm is changing. I started doing all of this because I love it with everything in me, when I’m doing it suddenly everything in the world is ok. 

It is easy to get discouraged because it can be so hard at times, it can seem like the whole thing is set up to knock us down. That the only way we are gonna make it is either by being in the right place at the right time or curating what we do to the exact specifications of the platforms that host our work. 

Here is the big reframe, I am trying to make a world with my work, I want to make an ecosystem of my own away from all the rules of the road, and maybe that’s a road less traveled, but it’s a road I feel such a joy riding on. 

  I’ve swallowed a pill recently, maybe it’s that I’ve set the illusion of grandeur aside that I’ll ever break through this sort of glass ceiling into some minor fame. What lies on the other side of that is reality, I’d liken it to Neo taking the red pill. I can’t hold out for what I have no control over. So what do I have?  I have the present moment. I have two hours every evening after my girlfriend goes to bed. I have the beautiful style and talent I’ve been so blessed to have, I have the beautiful people I’m so fortunate to meet through my art, I get jobs that pay me well. 

What I’m trying to say is, we need to set the lofty goals and expectations aside and see what we actually got, because chances are it’s far more valuable than what we don’t yet have. 

After all, all we have is now.  now hurts. I’m tired now, I gotta pay $1,200 of bills coming up in 15 days now, can’t it just wait now? The answer is no it can’t wait. That’s why I’m here now typing this instead of playing Zelda right. 

    I’m about half way through the 1,150 issue One Piece manga, I am so enamored by series creator Eiichiro Oda’s tenacity to maintain a nearly flawless weekly issue output since 1997’. That is what I want for myself. There are two things there I highly admire. He has created a world for himself where he can do whatever he wants, and he has had the gumption to stick to telling his story for over a quarter century. His work is such an integral part of his life. 

  Now I don’t currently see myself making something quite like One Piece, but what I have been trying to get at since I made a commitment to making a monthly blog and newsletter, is to start teasing out what my world would look like. What would I draw and say every month if I have a magazine, and I’m starting to see. I don’t know where this goes but this feels like a true start to what I want for myself. 

Pursuing our passion can be so unforgiving and often thankless, but I love this more than anything else and I want to do this for the rest of my life and that is why I will continue to burden whatever pain it saddles me with. 

How do you feel about all this? What sort’s of struggles do you go through with your work? do you relate? Let me know 

Thanks for reading. 

-SMH 

Slow, Steady and Soulful

I was doing some meal prep the other day when my cousin came into the kitchen. We got on the topic of keeping the soul in our work. To sum the conversation up we were basically talking about quality over quantity. He’s a touring musician, he regularly does runs all over the country, I’m talking he’ll do a 2 day jaunt down to Florida to play a 2 hour set maybe hit a show on the way back then do do a 10 show run in Rocky’s the next week. He’s all over the place living a lot of peoples dreams, but he’s also spending 90% of his time on the road cooped up in a van and he’s always fatigued. He really struggles to create a sense of normalcy when he’s home because of how all over the place his life is literally.

He seemed to hint a little toward the redundancy of driving all over the place trying to cast a wide net while simultaneously spreading himself too thin. But he did mention an alternative, He Said something to the effect of “Back in the day when we where playing local shows, we just built our following up in the area so we had a local draw. And I’m thinking what if we focused that same attention/ intention on the other surrounding big hubs. Baltimore, Philly, DC build that same following so we have people waiting for us in those cities and hit em every 3 months or so.”. In doing so I’d he insinuated he could cut down on inessential shows and mitigate fatigue. There’s got to be a point when you ask yourself “why am I doing this, driving 50 hours for 6 hours of play time, when it always comes at the cost of being in the studio, writing new material or doing the things we actually love.” there can come a point where our art is consumed by the tedious minutiae of small business where creativity and soul takes a back seat because of it. We do it because we think we have to. We do it because we’ve been told this is the only way. so here’s a question and then I’m going to pose and alternative.

At what point are we putting our thirst for fortune and fame above the soul of the art?

I had been thinking about my goals a lot lately and one of my main goals has been to stop sacrificing my routine or well being for a project that may come about. That is my golden rule, I will never uproot my life for a big project. So back to the talk about Quality over quantity.

I’m not trying to poo poo on the touring life, or the Art hustle. We all have to do it, but we don’t have to be completely be at it’s mercy. I used to throw my whole life out the window every time I got a big job. I did this Coloring book for Sheetz a few years back, I had no life for those two weeks and I was completely at their mercy. I would associate my world view with a feast or famine mentality back then. If a big job like that came about I don’t think I believed I deserved it deep down, so I’dd I desperately cling onto those opportunities like they’d never come again.

Just like the touring, I’m not down talking them at all, in fact I would say we should have reverence for every opportunity we get and we should try to bring the most positive attitude to everything we do in our practice. We truly can love it all. In fact that is what I’m proposing. We can love it all, we have to love it all if we truly want to be satisfied, but we have to take our humanity into account as we plan it all out. We’ve got to take inventory of our needs and factor them into the budget, They are just as important as the paycheck.

So I’ve been trying to make every step of my art practice as conscientious as possible. Meaning I want the whole process to be enjoyable from the moment I do the initial sketch, to the moment I get the canvas framed and bubble wrapped. I want care to seep into every aspect of what I do. This is where the inventorying comes into play. You start to notice things like “Hey I can do 4 events a month, a newsletter and a painting and still maintain focus but add a 5th event and the whole system comes crashing down” then I think to myself “well yeah but what if I cut the amount of events I do in half? I’ll book two more reputable events of double quality instead. Next thing I know I’m more well rested I had more time to doodle and I’m happier and more attentive at the shows.

This goes back to where the conversation started. We think we have to do more, but oftentimes when we do more we accomplish less. I believe it’s the path of least resistance and least reward when we just mindless cram it all in and will ourself forward. But when we step off that path, when we start thinking about what we actually want, when we start thinking about how we want our careers to feel. When we start taking mental notes after every show and every painting and we make actionable goals to make positive achievable change. We can truly make a healthy life for ourselves and make all of our aspirations actionable in a way the benefits us first and foremost.

Biggest question I’dd ask myself in consideration of committing to something

1. Are you able maintain a healthy routine mind, body and soul?

2. is there still enough time for creativity and play within your practice

3. Do I have to sacrifice 1. or 2. if I commit to this

4. if so for how long?

5. Am I ok with that?

This has been a longer one so I’m going to start wrapping this up. But It is imparative that we make space for play in our work. We are Artists and dreamers first and foremost. I have had this as a goal for a while and there had been a big list of deliverables I’ve been working through this year but it’s all been to build a foundation for myself where I can keep the business running smoothly and still allow time for play more than ever before. I am laying the foundation for the rest of my life, I want to play in the studio every day!

Here’s to doing the thing that brings us the most joy as much as possible

Thanks for reading

xoxox

SMH

Setting My Sites on the Horizon

Nearing the completion of a very big goal, what’s Next?

I’m Nearing the completion of a very big goal I set back at the beginning of 2023. It’s the website and merchandise booth I’ve been talking about. it’s been coming in and out of focus as other things had taken precedence temporarily. It’s been one of those things I talk about, I tell people about but it never seems to get anywhere. but sure enough I’ve been checking off all the box’s and there are only a few more box’s to check. A new horizon is upon me and It’s only a month away. I can’t help but ask what’s next.

Yeah sure I have plans jotted down, I have lists and itineraries. but there’s a fear in me that doubt’s that I’ll actually get to it. See rebuilding, structuring, getting the framework and then just getting occupied by mounds of commissions has just been my life. I have a knack of starting new projects like this, I was never getting to the end of these sort of tangential projects that are for my art but they aren’t my art by that I mean it’s not me sitting in my studio making new work. so when I would finish one project I would start another, and after that I’d redo the last or I’d loose a logo so I’d have to redraw it. just kinda creating this ground hog day like scenario where I have too much going on to actually make original work. or I would just have so much I committed to doing that I just couldn’t uphold the structure. I also want to add I think we all have a version of this struggle, we have something we do that keeps us from doing the things we love. It’s a dragon that we have to conquer. I think we do it because we’re ultimately afraid to do the thing we love cause it makes us happy and in some weird way we’re afraid to be happy.

This new horizon I’m envisioning is not just about wrapping up work on my website it’s about wrapping up starting new side projects, hobbies and offshoots. it’s about turning a new leaf and being conscientious about the things I commit to. Its easy to have a project looming over your head for a year and using it as an excuse to not start something. It’s easy to pile new offerings, new ideas, new products because it’s fun to come up with them.

But it’s time for me to get out of the idea phase, it’s time to stop overcommitting and underdelivering I’m ultimately just shooting myself in the foot because I’m afraid to go live and experience the real thing. Best analogy I can think of is someone wants to remodel their living room, and as soon as they finish it they’re tired of it and they just start over. at a certain point you just gotta sit down and get comfortable. Where’s the lazy boy? I’m ready to sit back and binge watch The Walking Dead!!!

It’s not to say that I haven’t been productive, I have actually produced more work in the last few years than ever potentially. but it’s a certain intuition I have that I can’t help but chase. I’ve had similar intuitions before and I was always happy once I got to the other side of it.

So let me describe what I see in my head. What I see now first and foremost is two hours in the studio every weekday evening that is non negotiable. But what I see after that is freedom and play. Yeah I want to be making paintings, drawings, digital drawings, I want to study Concept art. and that’s what all this building has been about, I have the structure in place to be able to organize all that, sell it, market it, find places to curate it, studios to apply to. I’ve been figuring out how to deliver the art as easily and efficiently to the right people. How to inventory it, how to make producing the pieces, producing reproductions so on so fourth the whole thing. So all that’s left to do is make it. So back to those two hours. All the structure is there so all that is left is play.

This is the piece I haven’t spoke about, I got all these plans and agenda’s but where’s the play. and that my friends is the horizon I’m talking about. I see fun and experimentation in the studio I see light goals but I mainly see myself just making whatever I feel like making without deadlines, without plans just a space to go and play every night. and that is not just about creating a career that is about creating an enjoyable life.

Play is over the horizon, I hope to see you there!

xoxo SMH

Thanks for reading my blog post. It means alot to me.

Many More Cartoons!

I first started thinking about the website refresh back in January 2023. I brought it up at the first SMH team meeting that would also be the last SMH team meeting. I had a rag tag group of folks that had been helping me out at the time, but ended up having to really scale back to focus. Long story short I brought the site up to them back then, I said something along the lines of “it’s going to be a mythical space for all things SMH, its going to replace all my social media outlets and I’m going to use it to create a member portal where I can sell content.” and none of them knew what I was talking about. Like many of my ideas at the time it was a tad bit far fetched, and given my current circumstances I probably wouldn’t be able to realize it.

That had been a trend. Having big ideas. Possibly too many big ideas, getting bogged down by all the heady thoughts and having little output. Well it was more than that. It was working a Job, taking commission work, trying to draw and paint and rebuild the site.

I feels like its been longer cause I want to say years. but over the past year(s) I’ve had to really whittle down my commitments to really get straight on what my priorities

a year passed and I was finally able to find enough focus to work a two month stretch on the site. Like I said I dreamt it up back in January 2023 and here you find me in September of 2024

So I was paying $175 for an annual Square Space subscription and I was using the site as a glorified portfolio or all my high ticket work with a merch store tacked on. That is all well and good but I’ve been seeing a vision in me for sometime that I’m more than just a dude that does cool client work, my website should be more than a space for me to get more client work. In fact I want to put my best foot forward and state that, said client work isn’t even my main intent. My main intent is to spread these cool cartoons because I love them and I want them to be my everything! So I started dreaming up the new site and I started with a front page a dedication to how I fell in love with cartoons. I decided I would build the whole page around that.

It’ll continue to grow out from here, but I’ve been seeing this stuff in my head for some time and I thought it would never come. We’re at a good spot with it, it currently feels like going to some weird SMH carnival and that’s the vibe I like. This is only the beginning of what I see in my head but I take these things as omens. This is a sign of what’s to come for me.. What I mean by that is many more cartoons!

So go peruse the site, check it out, immerse yourself in it. cause I’m really proud of it.

Love you!

-Steve

I tend to get myself swept away in the minutia of everyday life. You know bills, work, bills, groceries. More bills!! It’s easy to fill every second of everyday; and that todo list, you ain’t ever getting to the bottom. That means im always gonna be working. What I really need is a chill pill, maybe a nap or a back rub. Anybody got a chill pill?

But hey! You got any flowers?? Mind if I buy some off of you? Shoot what about a bouquet? Cause I need a sniff. Let me stick my nose in it, let me bury my face in it! I’m gonna fill my tub up with epson salts and flower pedals like that pretty lady from that art house movie American Beauty from 98’ Then you can gawk at me in my bliss and I can finally take a breath.

Anyway smell the flowers. They smell good