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

Learning to See

   I get a slight anxiety every time I start a new painting project. More specifically, I get anxious when I have to transfer the design from a sketch to the wall. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this but I really only have time to paint when I get hired to paint (working on that). So it’s kinda like I’m learning how to do it again, each time I start a new project. 

   To get to the point, I’m always facing self doubt when I go to put the initial sketch on the wall. This whole thing isn’t even really about doing murals. It’s more about playing down the anxiety I face when doing something that’s just a normal part of my routine. I’dd assume We all deal with some version of this.

  So here’s the positive spin I’m trying to put on this, I want to stop letting my fear poison my work flow. I want to stop believing what my negative self talk is telling me. I want to combat the negative self talk with confident words of affirmation. I want to go a step further and use my track record as proof such as: “I’ve done this a thousand times.”,“I do this over and over again.“,“There’s no reason for me to doubt the outcome.”. In doing so I’ll hopefully let go of the trepidation so I can just enjoy my art. I’m trying to let every phase of the process take on a life of its own.  Let the vision be the vision, the sketch will be the sketch and the painting will be the painting, rather than measuring every step against the previous step in the process or some unreachable expectation.

That’s the whole point I’m trying to make. I have Prior proven experience we can draw upon. I’ve been through the process enough to trust we can do it. Worrying about whether or not we can do it will not make the work better. I want to be in a season of enjoying what I do.  I want to be in a season of doing it because I love it.  I’ve been through the blood sweat and tears part.  Let me put my joy on display, let my job be fun and empowering.  I’ve done it enough to trust my vision. I’ve drawn enough to trust my eyes.  I’ve done it enough to know that every time I do something,  Beauty will be the end result.  It may not be exactly what I see in my head, it may not end up looking identical to the sketch, but that’s not the point. I give myself permission her and now to let go of my perfectionism.

I feel corny saying this but every part of making an art piece is a birthing process and every stage has its own life.  I’m going to let go of all that fear and let the art take on a life of its own. 

Yours truly

SMH

I Been Through the Mud and I Came out Clean

Have you heard the expression “no mud no lotus”? Basically we’re all gonna go through it before we find inner peace. After all a lotus only grows from the mud. 

  I been through it and you been through we’ve all been through it. but I think we gotta go through it cause there where plenty of times when I was outta line and I really needed a humbling. Times when I wasn’t respectful, times when I thought too highly of myself, I wouldn’t listen to nobody. 

So if the universe wants to spank me I will gladly bend over, I’ll humbly take whatever BIG UNI wants to dish out and I’ll call it schoolin cause I know I’ll be better for it. 

It’s been a long winding road with many bumps and I’m sure there’s a long winding road ahead. but it’s a road I’m ready to walk cause I know I’ll be better for it. 

xoxo SMH

Bend Over Backwards

Bend over backwards for the people that would bend over backwards for you. 

     Too often I find people distracted by people who cause em’ distress. Fixating on what they don’t have or all the things that are going wrong. And you know what they say? Entropy is the default in this world. If things are always in a state of chaos why do we choose to bring people around that amplify the chaos? 

     Conditioning obviously plays a big role. I believe it starts by making different choices. It starts by learning to gravitate toward people who make you feel good in a good way, rather than people that make you feel bad and create some sort of dynamic where you will only ever be less than.

   I’ve fixated on those people, fixated on situations of all kinds where I’m the fool. So I really had to work to over power my draw to that familiar place. I had to start calling myself out every time that moment arose to put myself in a situation that would put me down. When I spotted it I learned to stop doing it. I learned I deserved more than that. 

Then I learned to redirect my intention to the situations that made me feel warm. I made a rule for myself that I am only fostering relationships in my life that consistently make me feel good in a good way. Not to say that moments don’t arise where you gotta walk through the fire, but that’ll never be the standard. 

I choose people who choose me. I go to places I am wanted. it’s as simple as that. 

Xoxo SMH 

Student of Life Part 1

I’m starting a new journal series, you can call It a short essay or a journal whichever you choose. I put out a little booklet at the beginning of the year called SMH Annual Vol.1: Enough To Share. 

  The book was all about what I had learned that year. When I wrote that publication I hadn’t really made an effort to put my thoughts together about it until the end of the year. I’m an artist that really loves being in the process So I figure it’ll help me to gather my thoughts leading up to writing the second volume.

  This year’s theme will focus around being a Student of Life. I always consider myself that, but I’m really feeling compelled to be a student right now. I started going to school for illustration last year and it’s pushing me in a whole new direction as an artist. It’s very focused on drawings principals I glanced over in high school and a whole new host of other lessons. 

  Vol.1 had this art direction I was really proud of, I worked for years to create this visual identity for myself. Been remaking my website with is in mind, making illustrations to post and sell. and what it seems like is I brought that style as far as I could given my current technical ability. So it feels like a logical conclusion for me to put a pause on the Cartoons for the time being to dip back into the well so to speak, see what there is to learn out there. 

It’s really, really fascinating honestly. To be a novice again, to have mentorship again, to be humble again. There are a lot of things right now happening around me that are giving me much needed fresh perspective. To continue on about the illustration itself, there are ways where I always knew the perspective was off, I always knew I was limited in some ways when it actually comes to my knowledge of anatomy. Certain things would just look goofy within the piece, it was the sorta thing I would hope people would glance over in my work and let the loud bright color distract them. Ultimately I feel as though they were inadequacies I was pretty insecure about. Obviously that is more than ok to have those flaws, I am just happy I decided to start focusing on fixing them. 

Obviously you’ll see a few drawing here I decided to share. This is the stuff I’m currently working on. Trying to push myself to work on the illustration principals I was taught for an hour or so each day and balance other projects I got going on. It all adds up and amounts to the schooling I’m seeking. 

Is this the life of an artist? It remains to be seen.

Xoxo SMH 

P.S here’s a link to 2023’s SMH Annual if you’re interested.

https://www.stephenmichaelhaas.com/shopsmh/smh-annual-vol1-enough-to-share-physical

A Trip to the Anne Marie Garden

I got my first rental car this past Saturday. My car has been out of commission 2 months due to someone hitting it while I was asleep. But I was selected to show my art in an upcoming exhibit at The Anne Marie Garden an affiliate to the Smithsonian and Hirshhorn museum. So the show must go on.

I’ve mentioned this in the story but my work was reviewed by the director of the Hirshhorn and the Smithsonian so it doesn’t get much better than that for me. This is amongst the proudest moments for me.

This definitely inspires me to aim higher! I’ve been practicing letting go, trying to trust in my faith more. I recently decided to stop chasing, stop. Pushing to make stuff happen it’s funny this opportunity fell into my lap right when I decided that.

I’m deciding to trust that I’ll always be taken care of. Also that’s my brother zach with me! Thanks for tagging along bro.

Xoxo

SMH

Headed the right direction

I haven’t kept a blog consistently really since tumblr back around 2011-2012. Instagram took that over and massively deemphasized the use of words lol.

social media seems to be the epitome of style over substance. but I have been thinking about creating a space for myself to share my thoughts more consistently. after all I do think pretty pontificate non stop

I’m on a new journey with my illustration to really grow. I am also accepting that I’m a thinker, speaker and a writer as much as I am an illustrator. Sharing my ideas is really important to me. I also really love how they all add up. A blog is definitely a brilliant way to track progress.

To touch back on the illustration piece, I recently realized my ultimate goal would be to work in cartoons or video games in some capacity and I accepted that, my illustration leaves a lot to be desired if that’s something I really want to commit myself to. So I better get after it.

I also want to be much more intentional about how I put myself out in the world as an artist. I’ve had a few really good hits with some bigger companies or organizations but I’ve never been able to create any semblance of consistent work within that world. So it’s really been feast or famine over the years. but I realized its because I leave a lot of it up to happenstance. I get the good job referrals because I always knock it out the park when someone hires, I just don’t really put much effort into finding new clients or putting myself out there.

Further more I pour a significant amount of recourses into social media or other events that don’t ever really seem to pay off. So I’m in the process of kind of reorienting my focus toward growing my technical skills and putting my time into connecting directly with big museums or companies rather than leaving it up to chance.

I feel so empty sometimes when I put a piece out into the world that took 30 hours and it gets 30 likes. It get’s to a point where I see that more frequently than say the work I did with Verizon, or the people who’s jaws are dropping at the mural. But I always have such a good time and make so many friends when I am on a project. So rather than constantly casting a line out the noone ever bites I think I want to start leaning into the areas I have found success……. with the museums, with the people who bought the murals, with the ad agencies that reached out to me, with my teachers. I always have nourishing conversations with them. and in a way part of what I really want is to be working with people doing incredible things. I’m already actually doing that in a way. rather than focusing on how many like or followers I don’t have. I wasn’t present with dude at the restaurant I was painting. I was pissed off about how nobody way liking the mural post that I wasn’t even focused on the dude I was hanging out with.

Anyway! that’s where I am. Stay tuned

xoxo SMH