The Art of Fear | with Shar Tuiasoa
Fear has ended more dreams than failure ever has. But for Shar Tuiasoa, award-winning illustrator, founder of Punky Aloha Studio and collaborator with brands like Southwest Airlines, Guess, and Hawai‘i Magazine, fear became the unlikely fuel for her rise.
She didn’t start with connections, capital, or a clear plan. She started with late nights waiting tables in Kailua, raising kids while finishing her art degree, and returning home to Hawai‘i with no job prospects in sight. Fear was always there, but instead of letting it crush her, she learned to work with it. What began as “pretend” projects turned into a thriving art business rooted in bold, vibrant illustrations that now travel the globe.
Here’s how she’s turned fear into fuel, and the lessons she wants others to take with them:
Lesson 1: fear can be a teacher
After graduating from Laguna College of Art and Design in California, Shar imagined herself starting fresh in Los Angeles, breaking into animation. Then life shifted. She gave birth to her son, and her boyfriend insisted on moving back home to Hawaiʻi.
Suddenly, everything she had worked toward felt out of reach.
“There is no way I could start my animation career [in Hawaiʻi],” she says. “I was getting really fearful that I was just going to become one of those people who went out, got their fancy degree, and then didn’t use it. I was going to be back waiting tables, bartending.”
That fear was sharp and real. The kind that could have paralyzed her. Instead, it became her teacher, forcing her to ask: what can I do with what I already have?
She knew bartending and late-night shifts weren’t sustainable with two kids at home. Bills were stacking up, and she felt that sickening dread of slipping backward. That edge of panic became the pressure she needed to pivot.
Lesson 2: Start small, even if it feels fake
Shar didn’t land a dream job right away. In fact, she didn’t land one at all. Instead, she began building a mock portfolio. She designed pretend menus, fake logos, and business branding projects, just to show herself what was possible.
It felt small. Even silly. But it kept her moving.
“I was out there exploring, like, okay, what do graphic designers really do? Just trying to make my portfolio the best I could make it since it was all just something made up out of my head.”
In those practice runs, she stumbled onto a new style: graphic, colorful, playful illustrations of women who looked like her and the friends she grew up with. What started as pretend projects quietly planted the seeds for Punky Aloha.
People noticed. Friends started asking if they could buy prints, and local coffee shops began emailing to stock her work. What began as pretend projects suddenly had real-world value.
Lesson 3: Believe enough to invest in yourself
At first, the only people buying her prints were friends. Then coffee shops started reaching out, asking to stock them. That’s when she took a leap: borrowing $60 from her boyfriend to print her first batch of artwork.
It wasn’t much. But it was enough to make her feel like she was really doing this.
“I kind of just decided one night that I was going to get my business license,” she remembers.
That decision, along with that tiny, risky investment, was the start of something bigger.
But the leap came with hurdles. No one had taught her how to run a business. Unexpected costs like packaging and shipping ate through her tiny budget.
“They don’t teach you in art school how to apply your degree to the real world,” she says. She had to learn money management the hard way. By stretching every dollar, putting earnings back into business cards, websites, and the next print run. Each reinvestment was an act of belief in herself.
From there, momentum built. Shops carried her prints. She caught the attention of Hawaiʻi Magazine. Then came freelance design projects, licensing deals, and collaborations with global brands like Guess and Southwest Airlines.
Each step began with small, sometimes scary risks.
Lesson 4: Fear doesn’t go away, and that’s a good thing
Even with her success, Shar admits fear is still present.
“Especially as a freelancer, you don’t have a steady paycheck. That fear really helps actually drive you, because you don’t know where your next paycheck’s going to come from…Fear can feel scary, but really it’s kind of like a huge motivating factor to just keep driving forward.”
Freelancing means uncertainty: one month could be packed with work, and the next could be silent. Instead of treating that as a weakness, she uses it as a reminder to stay hungry, to keep creating, and to welcome vulnerability. She learned in art school that putting your work on the wall, open to critique and rejection, was practice for the real world. Today, she still leans on that lesson.
Fear keeps her sharp. It reminds her to say yes to opportunities, to keep creating, and to never get too comfortable.
Shar’s Takeaway:
Fear of unemployment. Fear of wasted potential. Fear of not providing for your family. These are the fears that once haunted Shar.
But instead of letting them drag her backward, she turned them into fuel, the push she needed to build her own path in Hawaiʻi.
She once thought there was “no way” to build a creative career at home. Today, she’s living proof that fear doesn’t have to hold you back. It can push you forward.