Art of Don DeLeva

Last night was 2nd Friday, Seattle Belltown's art walk. I was at the 55 Bell Art Gallery, second floor of the Herban Legends across from the Seattle Art Institute. Good Show, Dave Bloomfield, Claudio Duran and Amanda Stalter. Here is my favorite work in the show. Claudio Duran along with his Clones: It's always good to see Dave's work, especially when you least expect it. This is my first time seeing Amanda's drawings. I was really drawn to the smaller works, they reminded me of short day dreams of nymphs that float through my mind. Yes, my mind because, I couldn't possibly pretend to know what goes through any one else's. 

M1 Spec :  graphite, water color on Bristol paper, 11/12/2004 Surrealism and Italian Futurism were the original art movements that captured my attention. Some how using a ruler and intersecting triangles released pent up energy in me and it continues to be a source of emotional release. This period of work for me was about the total abstraction of the human body. I saw each drawing as a metaphor for emotional state of mind of the figure. Each shape, shade and texture represented the subjects compartmentalized thoughts and emotions.

This is the first Skate board I painted, July of last year 2015. Since then I have painted 4 more and sold 5. The board you see here is a gift. It is in the collection of Bill Streeter of Tukwilla, Wa. He is the one that got me started painted on them. Thank you BILL!

Ive been looking at Picasso's work from the 50s and 60s as reference for a painting I am creating called "War begets war" and "40 miles out."   I took photos of "wars' progression. I posted them on Facebook I will post them here in the next few days. " 40 miles" has more reference to Picasso then "war..."

"YOU MUST BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT IF YOU IT'S ANGERING SOMEBODY." "I LOVE THE JUXTAPOSITION OF SOMETHING BROKEN WITH SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL GROWING OUT OF IT." Josh Homme

I forgot all about the photographer Roger Ballen. In the same way I am attacked to Joel Peter Witkin so too am I to Ballen. For me I think it is the sense of shamanic reality to everyday life. Black and white photographs have an other worldly quality to them.

It feels good to have the 2013 Seattle Artist Trust select a painting of mine to be included in the 2014 benefit auction.

It's been a while but all this time I have been working on a panel that I have been working on for the last 8 months. I have spent on average 2 hours a day on this piece. Sometimes I think I should just toss it and start another panel but for some reason I just hang on and keep painting on it. It has a sister piece that I have work on for 7 month but I think that work is finished. It's a wall street portrait, it feels like the last( who knows?). About 3 weeks ago I finally gave up coding to go back to art. Coding really wasn't that hard for me to give it up since it never worked for me. I spent 5 years working really hard trying to find a job coding and then spent the last 2 years trying to stop painting and art so I could learn JavaScript. I must have done a pretty good job at not painting because now...nothing comes to me and there is no flow to the process. I actually think this might be a good thing but man I am lost! I can't seem to concentrate on one thing and I

There is nothing like honesty, I mean it really is all we have. Honesty with yourself is even more rare. Some people just bleed it out of themselves and it shows in thier work like the singer and song writer for Polvo or the painter Max Ernst. I try to be honest but damn if accolades and money get in the way of making decisions that take a painting the way it should go. A this point i am going back to my roots to find out when i started painting with earthy desires in mind. I mean what if i should be printing instead of painting?

It has been a long time but at this point I really don't care. This morning I took a long shower and felt that hot water hit my back and dreamed of a future long away in a distant past. I don't mean to be vague but now my ships are leaving the harbor. Vague as it may be I don't know what to do with it. I can't seem to put it together so I just have to put it out there and hope someone else gets it or makes sense of it. I hear voices tell me to put it all together this way or that, but really they are voices telling me to make some sort of sense of something so you, the people, will understand it. Well I am out of Ideas and confusing conglomerations of ill fitting parts that don't help you understand. That's not your fault by the way besides the fact that you have all the faculties to make your own sense out to it. Maybe it's not for my generation to know. I think if anything I am creating myths for the generations that will be here in the tomorrow ho

What actualy is an existential crysis? I have been thinking about the birth place of ideas and motivation. I had this idea that maybe they come from not wanting to be alone. If you create something, anything,you have just proven you exist that thing is now in exsitance for others to see and bring into thier conscience.