Art of Don DeLeva

Where honesty in art is concerned, having a day time job gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in everyone else's daily life and offers a shelter from falling victim to following trends. Lastly, it gives you the oppertunity to say "no" to any deals you might make otherwise.

Naming a painting is a really hard thing to do especially if you don't know what or why you painted it. When I started, my titles were often as nonsensical as I could make them and then I started to make them try to have something to do with the work. Then they were just dates, then lyrics and poems, honestly I think maybe I have gotten 6 title right. LOL! I feel like titles can lead people in to what you want them to think about your work, but what if you don't want to lead them? Do you just leave everything untitled?

Remember that thoughts can be similar to a limp. Once you twist your ankle.  When most of the sharpest pain was gone your body made temporary adjustments to your balance so you could walk in less pain.  As the pain diminished your leg remembered these adjustments and kept walking that way.  Over a time you had little pain when walking so now you walk with a slight limp, because your leg is to lazy to retrain your walk to the balance before the twist. If you don't like a reoccurring thought, stretch out the twist to regain good balance.   

Ed Pashky In art there can be no direction or method with or without a result. In this way art history can be both limiting and freeing.  It can be limiting in the way that it can assume accepted definitions for mediums that are used. It can be freeing to know the breadth of possibilities within those mediums. Ed Pashky  Ed Pashky Ed Pashky  

It is hard to see the reality what it actually is. What make it really difficult is when you look a little deeper then the standard definition for things. DEVO, it there any more to say?

Since my hand can not physically or mechanically paint at the speed of thought. My mind seems to hold visual thoughts in place on the panel until I can paint them. In physicality and the material world this tends to leave areas of panel unfinished. Most of the time I don't realize I am doing this mental projection. This in turn leads me to believe I am further along the painting then I really am.   It isn't until days after that I realize the painting is unfinished. This result of semi-unfinished work usually brings me to revisiting a painting that I considered  complete. Usually it ends up better then it was  

As I paint my mind seems to work before my hand. Thus my hand is always trying to catch up to what I am thinking. So for example, after about an hour of painting my hand seems to be 3 or 4 hours behind what I have actually recorded from my thoughts into paint. My mind seems to see things and then project them on the panel for me to paint. It is almost like I am taking dictation from my thoughts. Painting in progress, 2018, 24"x30"

Very often, at least 8 times a painting session, my mind tells me what to paint or it dictates a direction to take the paining. Every time I listen to it I end up sanding out the result. The nice part about this process is that it leaves tiny bits of history behind for me to find the truth in.

There is a point in every work that seems the end is no where in sight. Is there a finish? Did the abstract expressionists teach us that over working can be a finished point? Mark Tobey: Six lines of the City. 1950s

Drawing is so immediate so expressive. I started with drawing, it just seemed so natural. I remember collecting pencils and erasers. Maybe I am obsessed with painting because I am still learning how to paint,

During the process of painting there might be times where you just stare at you work for hours on end. That's okay, because if you are not enchanted by the work then maybe the work is not enchanting. Master and Servant. Acrylic on panel,  35"x 45" 2010?

As a portrait artist I have come to realize the face is just a part of the body that we tend to focus on. The mind is part of that face. We see the world through our mind, it is only natural that it should be part of the face's physical appearance .

I wouldn't really know if it is easy to do a drawing in one hour. I assume it is a matter of if the work feels like it is finished. I tend to need more time.

Finding places to show your paintings is a good thing. No matter where you so show make sure you let people know you are show there. It will bring the bar or shop more people who will spread the word your are showing there.

My art has always been a log of my life experience, a journal if you will. It has been fun keeping track of my life as a animal being that is fully engaged in the human experience no matter how crazy it seems. It is so exciting to try to live as a 3 party passenger to the human experience. Thus the journal can be more from a journalists point of view. The challenge comes when the human me does not know what to do when the animal me experiences a change to my predictable bubble pattern. I seem to respond with the animal self searching for protection and intuition as a guide to safety and acceptance of my new pattern of existence.    Construction 6 , Graphite on rag paper, 8"x 10",  2004 

The mind seems to build a bubble around everyday life. This bubble seems to offer the protection of predictability. This bubble seems to shrink with time in order to create patterns in behavior that make the everyday " more efficient ". Do I know this? Can I prove this? No, I can't. It just seems that is how my mind works. Blunt Sly,  Acrylic on Skateboard, 2015

The every day creates patterns that are easy to slip into. Maybe try remembering they are just patterns, and will at some point in time change. This might make it easier to accept the new pattern and the change in your life. A red and black pattern changing as you look at it.

As to the Floating Monk, I truly believe he floated in the air forever because I saw it with my own eyes. And from the perspective of radioactive isotopes like Oxygen-12 and Boron-9, who have a half-life shorter then 10 −18 seconds, they have proof that the monk floats forever.  That is a scientific fact.

Sometimes it is easy to believe anything is possible.  On time, I saw a Buddhist Monk float in the air, in lotus position, for what could have been forever. However, from my perspective I saw this phenomenal feat take place for 0.5 seconds. There was no special effects curtsy of  video software. In full lotus there he floated. I watched him leap up in the air about 4feet and before he came back down to earth, he achieved full Lotus posture.

Most times images just spill out of me. This one did not. I did have a relationship with this one. Amy 

It's all about the story. People need a story to give them reference to the abstract a jump off point.

Maybe sometimes the words won't come so easy. Maybe it is because there are no words for what you are experiencing.

It's always been very hard to describe the difference between "Art " and Illustration. You can see it and hear it and feel it, art seems to be ephemeral like it is alive in some form. Illustration seems to just be explanatory, like a snap shot of life.

The mental part of creating can be an incredibly subtle action. The self critique seems to have the ability to take center stage as the driving force of direction. I know for me that my opinions on art history lead me into a corral of what I thought my work should be like. It was subtle, I rarely noticed my inner voice say things like "That doesn't look enough like Dali." or "Add more expression like Munch".   These where artist styles that I thought were "acceptable". This is not a slam against art history. I am saying more that art history is not a guide to create by. It is an example of what has been created so that you can see creativity's diversity. Most of art histories heroes where created by the price someone paid to own the art work by that artist. The Migration: acrylic and graphite on wood, 2012. 24"x30"

If you are on the floor, center of stage, four rows of people back, expect to get shoved. If you are near the perimeter of the Pit expect to be hit. If you take it personal, then you are the person that needs to rethink your vantage point. There are no victims in the pit . Bull and The China Shop: Acrylic on wood, 2014, 22"x 32"

Some days we plan to dedicate to "Really digging deep" into a project and getting a lot accomplished. Some times those days we end up accomplish things that we had no idea we needed to accomplish. As I walk: Acrylic on panel, 4x6, 2017

Some times you will get to the middle of a work and think your almost finished only to realize you are only at the beginning of the middle. I assume it has to do with seeing the potential of what it is you are building. But what if you can't see the potential because you don't know your own ability? Meaning you have never pushed yourself to a place in your work where you felt a sense of full accomplishment. Once again I am assuming you had to have attained the goal in order to know how to get there. What if your finished stage is measured on the comparison of your work to your hero's or mentor's finished phase? Do you know how and why they finished there? What if you don't know how to get to that finished phase you seek? What "mile markers" can you recognize that help you to realize you are in that finishing phase? Maybe these ideas could help. You could use your "Gut feeling" stage where you trust your instincts to tell you the work is

For me some of my paintings are subject to change. Coyote the Missing Semi Colon is one of those paintings. I get to a point in a painting where I think the work is complete, however that doesn't mean it is finished. In the painting below I had stopped working on it for 3 weeks but had not started the vanishing process on it. This is usually a good indicator that the work is not finished. One day I grabbed the work and started painting Ultramarine Blue on it. The next thing I knew I was turning it on it's side and on the road to finishing the painting.  Is this work finished? I am not completely sure, but I will know when I find myself varnishing it.

There are different stages to any creative work I find the middle stage to be the most challenging. The investment of starting the project has passed and the romance of the idea to completion is no where insight.

Procrastination most of the time takes the form of some easy win entertainment diversion, like watching click bait or playing a video game, surfing social media or watching sports. But procrastination can also take the form of teaching yourself something new like a computer language or starting a new hobby or getting your "life in order". I think the trick is making your procrastination benefit your main goal. For Example: If you are selling something online make the procrastination a marketing game and if that marketing game takes a bit of learning code then try learning that code as your procrastination. If this experiment didn't give you the results you though it would then at least you know that method of marketing didn't work.  But at least your tried it instead of leveling up in Mon Danes house cleaning Adventure. Coyote: acrylic on wood, 2019 16" x 20"x .5"

In the phases of creating there is always a middle point.  This point seems to be where you have worked through all of your initial interest in the project, its kind of where the infatuation has faded and you are faced with reality of finishing. Anyone can start a project, few can forge through the romance and fewer still and see the creation to it's end. 

Everything happens all at once, all of the time. Try just to wittiness it. Interpreting it is means focusing on one aspect of  it at a time and applying your opinions to it.

People ask," What are you trying to say? What is the story you are trying to tell people? If i am listening, observing and recording then you already know the answers.  I am more interested in why you might need your questions on your own reality confirmed. My Two Sides: acrylic on wood 2018. 5"x7"

Try twisting the brush as you paint a line, let the line swell and condense. Better yet see if you can forget that you are in the act of painting. Try watching what it is that your hand is painting. What is it trying to communicate to you? Queen Maria, painted by Deigo Velazquez

Knowing what to say is different from having something to say which is different then not knowing what to say and how to say it. Observing the moment is much easier.

When you, work just work.

It can be easy to brush of the people in your Tribe or Squad as friends and family, but the truth is they are your squad because they see something in you or your work that speaks to them.

Counting social media "likes" is a fruitless and harmful habit if  you endeavor to create from the Heart.

Sometimes it feels like you are the only one around. Congratulations your in the lead. Artist Diego Velázquez Year 1652–1653 Medium Oil on canvas Dimensions 127 cm × 98.5 cm (50 in × 38.8 in) Location Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna Artist: Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez) (Spanish, Seville 1599–1660 Madrid) Date: 1651–54 Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: Overall 13 1/2 x 15 3/4 in. (34.3 x 40 cm); original painted surface 12 7/8 x 15 1/8 in. (32.7 x 38.4 cm)

Creating without a story? Is there a such thing? Everything made seems to have a story with it, a shovel has a story of purpose. A story has the purpose of a story with a lesson or entertainment. Even rocks seem to have a story of history and ingredients attached to them. Finding the story in what it is you are creating will help you to recognize when the work is finished. 

It is hard to see how your art really looks in reality. First you have to know the difference between delusion and what it real. Then you have to let your body do what it wants to do and find a common ground between muscles and brain. You can honestly feel when the mind is controlling the body too much, its subtle but you can feel it.

Creating everyday, convinces the critique that they might be underestimating the importance of your gift. the Curly Brace, drawing, 4x6 graphite   

It is hard to differentiate between what you think you are saying and what you are really saying. I have found the less I try to explain the people who interested always seem to ask more questions. 

People often ask what does this painting mean? If you answer definitively, you will lose their opportunity to interpret the work for themselves. If you ask what their interpretation is, they will ask you the question once again. This is because the do not want to have the wrong answer. How can they be wrong when there is no wrong answer... unless you made one?    

As you walk on your path through your real life adventure realize you have 5 scenes. Should you lose your way of seeing the path realize you can feel your way down the path. Should you lose your seeing and feeling you can follow your hearing and smell. The path doesn't disappear we only have to try using a different scenes to find it's direction.

It is hard to see the path you are on. However there are roads that are less traveled and they are just as adventurous and war torn.

Without passing on the billions of opportunities to do things I wanted to I could never have been able to accept the challenges of 50 opportunities I lusted after.  Angle of Psychosis: Oil on panel, 1915 24x32

As to the saying "practice something for over 10,000-hours and you will be at a world class level ." Maybe... But it seems to me that 10,000 hours of practice makes you a world class practitioner of your field. Why not talk off your watch and feel what the master feels instead of the student. Huxley's Dream: Acrylic and composition leaf on panel, 6"x 12", 2017

 Using abstraction can either confuse and lose a viewer or get them to ask themselves "How do I look at this painting and what is it saying to me?". Empower your audience, give them the opportunity to think and create their own reality. Bison Kachina: Acrylic on wood, 6/15/19, 4" x 6"      

Ideas and their fruition take time. Just like trees you have to water them, prune them and nurture them. Once they are created make the effort to finish them otherwise they will always be unfinished.

Listening to advice is tricky. You really are the only one that knows the answer for sure. For a long time people told me my paintings unfinished. They sure felt finished to me. Heavily sanded out images suggested abstracted human portraits coming out of white noise static. I still did not share their view of what they felt was missing. Then one day it struck me, I am not an illustrator. I never wanted to tell the viewer what to look at and explain it in detail so as to steel their personal interpretation. Mystery is fragile, so is the mystery of own personal world.

You can tell when you are creating from a place of deliberate intent. A voice comes into your head and starts to dictate the evolution of the outcome you are predicting. Make a curved line, now make a second curved line that connects both lines at each end. Now make a dot in the middle. There, your eye is completed. When you create from a place of no intent time disappears with seemingly no evolution of creativity. Meaning there is no going through dictated steps to creating you just happen to find the image that already exists. City Night: Acrylic paint on Masonite 2017 

The color you see in your work is not the light your photo your takes. The focus you see in the viewfinder is not the view the camera captures. Making sure what you think you see can not be denied is your job as the artist. WIP sketch one: acrylic on wood, 

The mix of thought, feeling, physical skill, mood, physics and memory rarely come out literally, even in the 10,000th hour of painting. By this time you will have made some sort of compromise and agreement with them all. This is called your style.

Don't worry about over working a painting. It is the only way of knowing when you should have stopped.

My images are vary fragile and I loose them quite often by over painting. Some times I get to a place were I feel have to make a decision. In one hand I feel the work is not done. In the other hand I feel that no one will know the difference if it is complete or not so I can stop. But if it is calling to me for more work then loosing the image is a risk I am willing to take in order to create something that looks fresh and still being created.

Sometimes when my conversation with a painting gets to be too literal I use sand paper as a way of showing just a glimpse of a message. It's like not understanding what someone said or not hearing the complete story. You invest yourself in the paining by assuming and inventing the details you didn't hear or were generalized by the story teller. I Feel Shine : acrylic on wood 7"x8" 04//06//2017

For me looking at written words is intimidating.  I literally see them as a tiny, extremely abstract shapes of larger shapes, like scraggles of hair or loose foam clumps with abstract specific meanings and context. I speak with images,  shapes and color that get their context form intuition and self knowledge.  Untie the connection between seeing and the accepted definitions of what you are looking at. Rich The Snippet: Drawing, graphite on 100% rag paper. 8.5.2019 BAI  Feel the image, explain  it like you can't see.   

i am really just an art history geek. Who wanted to make a contribution to the world of art. My goal was honesty. i honestly believe studying the past has been a hindrance and a path forward in finding a voice. It lead me to realize that everything i create uses my voice because i can't be anything other then my own delusions.  Don Deleva, Rossetta Threshold To The Past , 2014 acrylic on panel. collection of  David DeSilva 

Portraits of people in their cyber self image. This is a drawing called Starlet Your Hard . It is 5x7 on rag paper. This portrait is about how a synthetic ego solidifies once a person starts to gain a social identity and how the branding process helps them to build a person of who they think they are online which then is supported by social media. Born from ones and Zeros,  purchased at MoNA, Museum of Northwest Art, Laconnor Wa. 2019 art acution. This painting is about a person beginning to teach themselves programming and how to create a persona online. 

Will we build an algorithm for the concept of  wild Animal, like a Coyote, Wolf, Bear? Will we  keep killing in the program since it does not need to eat? WIll we build an Alpha - Coyote that will domesticating it's pack? If AI don't eat what will happen to the furtility of the forests ? DeLeva...

portrait of Ada Lovelace. first finish 4.25.2019. Acrylic on wood panel 16"x16" portrait of Ada Lovelace. first finish Rotated  4.25.2019. Acrylic on wood panel 16"x16" The consistent persistence of Ada Lovelace. Second finish 4.25.2019. Acrylic on wood panel 16"x16". I have been battling with this painting for the last three weeks. I had finished it last night but it just kept bugging me, thus the first finish and first title. I couldn't decide what way was down. I wanted to get the feeling of Math, grids and punch cards clouding Ada's thoughts. It kinda worked but it was way to literal and it needed the flow and emotion of being electrified by Math and the Decision machine. So I used 60 grit sand paper to bring the emotion and electricity of her creativity. Creativity is a fragile fleeting thing and full of energy even software developers are electrified by it' s presence. Thank you Ada!!

These block prints are portraits of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Former First Lady of the United States and Cameron Howe Played by: Mackenzie Davis; TV show: Halt and Catch Fire Neo Cubist block print portrait of Jackie Kennedy blue:  linocut print on lana cotton rag paper, 5"x7" 4/2019 Neo Cubist block print portrait of Cameron Howe blue:  linocut print on lana cotton rag paper, 5"x7" 4/2019 Neo Cubist block print Cameron Howe multi-color:  linocut print on lana cotton rag paper, 5"x7" 4/2019 Neo Cubist block print portrait of Jackie Kennedy:  linocut print on lana cotton rag paper, 5"x7" 4/2019 These are the first prints I have pulled since the I was given an etching press. They are also the first consecutive pulled prints since graduate school.  My goal is to start using the press and create prints on a consistan basis. 

Untitled  20x20 still in progress. This painting is in progress, I would say it is around 70% complete. As I start to explain and define with words on my website what it is I am doing it seems like my painting is changing. I know this sounds obvious but seeing the manifestation of words into pictorial representation is interesting.

Be for the turn. B4 the Turn: 5" x 7" , acrylic painting on wood panel. This painting was more of a historic time marker for me. I wanted to designate that this painting was created before the birth of  of AI. Don’t blame me! The Jeanie is out of the bottle. This Dali like, art work notes this present time in history, before cybernetic enhancement have gone commercial.  “B4 The Turn”, literally means, before the turn of accepting commercial grade neural devices as a part of normal everyday commerce and exchange. In this cubist painting I have combined a portrait with geometry to suggest a surreal impression of what a synthetic, analytic and enhanced thought might look like to the Transhuman cyborg like artist.

Here are two works I am working on since the 2019 Museum of Northwest Art auction entry. This is a linoleum plate. It will be a color plate .   This is the 3 phase of one of my Neo Cubist paintings. My education is in printing, my roots are in drawing and I taught myself painting. A few weeks ago a good friend gave me an etching press and I am starting to print linocuts. I see this moving towards etchings at some point, but for now I have to get my printing work flow down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdPjscGydU4

She said "I can't find the sun. I am having problems with my retina translation monitors, ever since I switched my color space to RGBA_Adobe-Rose 1.6.". I couldn't figure out what she meant by the "Sun", because she was feeling really down and was squinting at the fire ball in the sky. This was her third time mentioning this in the very same tone of voice...pulses 3... and in dark measure.

Yesterday I got this thought of a story that has to do with companies making Biochips that plug into the human skull. These chips augment intelligence and physical traits of human animals. I saw some of the companies being, Microsoft- Nitrosoft, Apple- Fuji, IBM:business Nike- Ball, MAC- Fashion, and a few more that specialize in there type of intelligence. For example: Nike: would have chips that would specialize in muscle coordination, balance, things that give athletes an edge. MAC: would aid in facial muscle control, skin melanin manipulation, hair color, nail length, things that could change your physical appearance. Ways of walking weight loss, leg and arm control. Smith and Wesson: Zoom vision, Night vision hand coordination, balance all aimed at civilian gun ownership and sport shooting. What do these these augmentations look like online when you add analog physical features? What do these cyber identities look like when you add data graphics and physical features tog

My phone doesn't share my delusions, it exposes them and perpetuates them. We look to the phone in the same way we look at our best friend or child. We ask it questions, adorn and coddle it, tell it our inner most secrets  but we don't lie to it. We don't lie to it to save it's feelings, more we lie to ourselves and only look at the first page of search results that we think affirms our expected answer.