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Lea DeVall

@lea.devall

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@leadevallart
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A happy cabin and some butter-and-eggs… 🧈🍳🏔️

Hatcher Pass is its own kind of magic, seriously. There’s something about wandering through those high alpine valleys submerged in clouds and finding old cabins, mining remnants, and tiny wildflowers growing exactly where they please. It feels like the landscape is constantly telling little stories if you slow down enough to notice them.

And did you know the yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) is often called butter-and-eggs?

The name comes from its cheerful yellow-and-orange, snapdragon-like flowers — but the history of this little plant is much more complicated than its sweet name suggests.

Native to Europe and Asia, yellow toadflax was introduced to North America as an ornamental and dye plant. Before synthetic dyes, it was cultivated for its yellow pigment and could even produce shades of green with different fixatives. In traditional European folklore, it was also used as a natural insecticide and was believed to ward off spells and bad luck. Some traditions even said that walking around the plant three times could break a curse…

Which brings me back to Hatcher Pass.

This little journal page started with two seemingly simple things: an old cabin and a patch of butter-and-eggs.

But the more I learned, the more connected they felt.

Hatcher Pass carries the marks of people who came searching for gold — cabins, mines, roads, and remnants of an industry that changed the landscape. And this little yellow flower is another reminder of how humans have carried pieces of other places with us, eventually making them part of the landscapes we know today.

Neither looks particularly extraordinary at first glance.

But both are pieces of a much bigger story.

That’s what I love most about making art from places I’ve been: noticing the little things that are easy to walk past, and pulling at the thread just enough to discover what they have to say about a place, its people, and its history.

Sometimes a landscape is a mountain.

Sometimes it’s an abandoned cabin.

And sometimes it’s just a little flower called butter-and-eggs. 🧈🍳🌼

#AlaskaArt #HatcherPass #NatureJournaling #NaturalHistoryArt #FlowerArt

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SWIPE to un-paint this whimsical piece!

I made this in june 2025 and somehow never got around to sharing it 🦋

i still absolutely love this little painting because there’s something about having fun, being upside down in a field, surrounded by tall grass and tiny things worth noticing.

i think that might be why i’ve subconsciously held onto this one for so long… there are so many little details tucked into it—the butterflies, each blade of grass, the wrinkles in her shirt and the stripes in her pants, all the texture in the trees and all over this piece. it’s the kind of painting that looks complete from across the room and then asks you to actually slow down when you get closer.

and maybe that’s a little bit of what i like about it. sometimes we get so caught up trying to get somewhere, finish something, make something worthwhile, or move on to the next thing that we forget to actually look at what’s right in front of us.

i painted this over a year ago, moved onto a hundred other things, and somehow came back to it and realized… oh. i really love this.

maybe we could all use a little more time being upside down in a field, noticing butterflies. 🌿🦋

i’m also thinking about making prints of this one soon…
@leadevallart

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nothing better than a Montana sunset…

except maybe a pink Montana sunset 💗 @leadevallart

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This piece is titled “Mama Bear”

i made this painting for my own mother as a gift for her own generosity through life — and there was really only one way i could paint it: one mama bear and three little cubs. one for each of her kids. 🤎

recently, at the end of this summer, my mom flew all the way to Alaska so that she could drive back through Canada with me. she gave up her time, energy, and a piece of her own summer just to make sure i didn’t have to make that long journey home alone.

and as i was painting this, i kept thinking about how perfectly that represents who she has always been to me.

a mama bear, always willing to go a little farther, give a little more, and walk beside her kids through whatever landscape comes next.

so these four bears became more than just a scene from Alaska. they became a little symbol of our family — three kids following their mama through a huge and beautiful world. 🏔️🐻

my mom means the world to me, so i knew i had to make her a piece of art from my summer in Alaska. something that could hold a little bit of the place, the memories, and the love that came with it.

i’m so thankful to have a mom who shows up for me in all the big ways and all the little ones. and i’m especially thankful that i get to share the thing i love most — my art — with her. 🤎

this is also why i love creating meaningful pieces for other people. because sometimes a painting can be more than something pretty to hang on a wall. it can hold a person, a place, a relationship, a memory, or a feeling that you never want to forget.

the best paintings, to me, are the ones that mean something.

if you have a story you’d like turned into a painting, i’d love to create something personal and completely your own. 🐻🤎

made for my mama bear, with so much love.

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the biggest painting in my Alaska collection so far!! 🐚🐟🚢

1’ x 3’ of Seward — but not the Seward you always see.

when i first started this painting, i knew i didn’t want to just paint boats.
(that’ll be for another painting)

i wanted to paint what was behind them - architecture, ocean tides, and mountains.

the buildings along the dock. The weathered wood, windows, signs, poles, little architectural details, and all the lines that make up this particular stretch of Seward. The things you might walk past without thinking twice about, but that somehow become part of your memory of a place.

this painting took me several weeks to finish, and honestly, it tested my patience. there are so many lines and tiny details packed into this piece.

but somewhere along the way, it became one of my favorite parts of my summer.

i got to sit with this view for a long time.

long enough to notice everything there.

long enough to understand the shapes of the buildings, the rhythm of the windows, the way everything fits together, and how much personality can exist in something as ordinary as a row of buildings on a working waterfront.

and that’s one of my favorite things about making art from places i’ve lived: eventually, you stop just looking at them.

you start really seeing them.

every line in this painting became a tiny act of remembering.

i’m so happy with this one. 🤍🏔️

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“public privacy”

for those of you who don’t know, this summer i had the privilege of living in a tiny little dry cabin in Alaska for the entire season.

it was an incredible opportunity that gave me so much experience living on a shared community property alongside many other people, guides, and artists. but as much as i loved the experience, i often felt a little confined when it came to privacy — there was a strange feeling of being both at home and constantly a little bit exposed.

this piece is for those who don’t always feel comfortable in their own home.

this piece is also is a reflection of that feeling: the experience of having a private space that never felt entirely private, comfortable, or safe. it also references the actual cabin i spent my summer living in, resting in, and creating in.

still so thankful for the opportunity to live in this little home for the summer.

unfinished
acrylic on canvas

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Here are a few of many different handmade wire earring designs I created this summer.

I seriously made an insane amount of designs for earrings and jewelry in my free time this summer on the Alaska coast, and I can not wait to share them!
Let me know if you’d like a pair!

Small earrings $5-10
Larger earrings $15-20
Prices depending on materials used and time spent creating.

(more fun things coming soon, follow for more art :) @leadevallart

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what if you could carry a little piece of the mountains with you? 🐐🌿

i made this mountain goat + glacier lily tattoo digital design recently as a commission for my friend Angelina.

there’s something really special to me about making art that eventually becomes part of someone’s body — taking a place, an animal, a memory, or a feeling that means something to someone and turning it into something they can carry with them forever.

this one feels especially close to home for me. wildlife, wildflowers, mountains, and all the little details that make a landscape feel like home.

i’ve made a few tattoo commissions and would love to make more. if you have an idea you’ve been carrying around and want help turning it into artwork, my messages are open. 🤍

i also make original paintings, prints, stickers, and other artwork inspired by Montana, Alaska, and the wild places in between.

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the arctic tern makes one of the longest migrations on earth — traveling from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again, following the seasons across the planet.

lately, i’ve found myself thinking about migration a lot.

i came north to Alaska this summer with no real idea of what i would find here. somewhere along the way, Alaska started to feel less like a destination and more like a place that was teaching me something about movement, change, and following whatever calls you somewhere new.

maybe that’s what i love most about birds.

they remind me that there is no shame in leaving one place for another. that sometimes you have to wander a little to find where you belong. and that going somewhere new doesn’t necessarily mean you’re running away — sometimes, you’re simply following the season.

these two arctic terns felt especially fitting to paint while i’m here in Alaska. two little travelers, caught in a blue sky, somewhere between where they’ve been and where they’re going. 🪽

painted by me, inspired by Alaska and the wild things that call it home.

this original is available — if it feels like a piece you’d like to bring home, send me a message. 🤍

#arctictern #alaskart #wildlifeart #birdart #painting

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i painted this fireweed a few weeks ago, but something about it didn’t feel finished.

so i came back to it.

a little more color. a little more detail. brighter petals. more of that wild, almost glowing feeling that fireweed has when you see it stretching across an alaskan landscape.

i think that’s one of my favorite things about painting — sometimes a piece doesn’t need to be started over. it just needs a little more time.

fireweed has always felt like such a fitting flower (growing up in montana and being in alaska now).

it grows through disturbance, and after burns, and it fills places that have been burned or changed, and somehow turns them into something beautiful again.

“ashes to beauty.”

maybe that’s why i keep coming back to it.

this piece is available for anyone who wants to bring a little piece of that feeling home. 🌸

dm me for details 🤍

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2 years with this not so little guy @ethan.hatcher15 🎣💗

i made this piece for ethan’s graduation a while back and it has a lot of sentimental value.

story time! : this canvas was gifted to me by ethan’s mother from her mother after she sadly passed away, so i decided to turn ethan’s grandmothers canvas into something they could all cherish.
and so i made a painting of the first time ethan caught a fish.

it might seem like an odd choice of photo, but if you know ethan, you know how much he loves to share his passion of fish.
i love my fish boy and his family and am so thankful to have made this painting for his family and to have been part of his life for the last two years.

can’t wait to create more art and adventures with you @ethan.hatcher15 🫶🎨

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here’s an unfinished piece i made a little while back… can’t wait to finish him when i get back to montana 🥲🌲🫶🫎

but enjoying my alaska summer in the meantime :)
@leadevallart

#montanaartist #montanaart #alaskaart #moose missingmyprojects

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