Meet Lena DeChamps // Artist & Owner, boneBLACK
Lena DeChamps is the artist and visionary behind BoneBLACK—murals, custom painted apparel, brand collaborations/merchandise, creative consulting, and a full screen-printing setup she runs out of her garage (sometimes until 3am). By day, she coordinates care for kids at Children's Hospital Colorado, a job she's held for 11 years.
She credits her German parents for how she operates: her dad's engineer-level precision, her mom's pull toward whimsy and everyday beauty.
Lena rides hard for her Denver community, keeps her various plates spinning without a drop of coffee (?!) and says most of her biggest career leaps started the same way: someone asked her to create something she'd never done before, she said "yes" first, and figured it out after.
Tell us who you are in a few words.
My name is Lena, a local artist in Denver who has quite a few mediums! I’ve been lucky enough to be flexible in the way that I work, being able to express myself in a few different ways through my creativity. I do anything from painting and murals, to branding and graphic design, screen printing, and custom apparel.
What was young Lena (as an artist) like? How has she evolved?
While I was always definitely creative as a child, I didn’t really start using art as an outlet until college, when I found myself sketching and exploring much more as a way to decompress and organize my thoughts. Throughout my journey as an artist, I’ve always found my way quite organically. In college, it was a way to have small moments for myself; after school, it was exploring ways to expand and improve; in Denver, it became more public-facing as I got more feedback that this was in fact “something”. I do love that the beginning phases were for myself, to myself—I felt I got to develop my inner guide to my own style purely for my own feedback.
BoneBLACK has a strong aesthetic that carries over across its many forms. Tell us about some projects you work on and the intentions you carry into them.
Oh my goodness, where to start? There are a few different tracts my work takes, which all revolve around my personal style and design. I occasionally do my own print releases—designs I’ve been working on in the background that I release every now and then as original art. I also design often for others, either through brand collabs or creations for other businesses that are my take on their brand. This is often through merch, murals, custom artwork, or creative consultation. We’re typically taking something quite unique to them as a client, and spinning it through my lens to create something special. I also own and operate a screen-printing business to be able to design and print in-house.
Give us the full picture of what a typical week looks like for you.
I’m usually always spinning on something or another. As a baseline, before I clock in as an artist, I work part time for Children’s Hospital Colorado. I’ve been doing this for 11 years and it does help give me structure and a routine.
Outside of that, I’m currently on retainer with two different brands for creative consultation and as a primary resident artist, so there’s always set time each week dedicated to those entities. Otherwise, I do find it hard to stop working, so to say.
I’m very lucky to have full control over my own schedule, with my base studio and full printing press at home with me; I can wake up and wander across the yard with a cup of tea to get merch up and running or sit at my drawing desk until 3am before crawling into bed. I have a hard time turning off my brain and typically have 5-7 projects running simultaneously at any given time. It's always a little game of spinning plates.
Tell us about a moment that, looking back, feels pivotal to you now?
I'd say the first mural I ever did. A friend submitted my name to the Thompson Hotel for their lobby and bar entryway murals, and I was hired before I even knew he'd done it. I'd never painted publicly, never painted for someone else, had no process or method to speak of. And I signed the contract anyway.
That's the magic of it: friends believing in me before I believed in myself, and me being willing to throw myself in full-force and figure it out after the fact. That's become the common thread in a lot of my growth: I get the call, I say "you got it," and then I go home and figure out how the hell I'm actually going to pull it off. Screen printing was the same story—I'd never once thought about it, and then a machine and a setup landed on my desk, and I just said yes.
That (at times delusional) belief in what I can execute has led to some of the most beautiful growth and business-building evolutions I've had.
You're coordinating care for kids at your day job, then going home to make art with your hands and screen print in your garage. How do you move between these different brain states?
I always say I got lucky in this life being raised by German parents. My dad is the classic German engineer type: precise, disciplined, everything has a process. My mom is the gentlest soul you'll ever meet, with this deep love for the small, beautiful moments in daily life. They're total opposites, but they always found their own balance together, and I think I inherited both sides of that.
From my dad, I got the discipline and precise execution—the ability to schedule, plan, and adapt like a system. From my mom, I got the whimsy and the pull toward everyday beauty. So moving between different mindsets doesn't feel like switching brains, exactly, it feels like switching which duality comes to the forefront. The structure lets me hold the chaos of the day job, and the whimsy is what lets me actually make something with my hands at the end of it.
You’re reaching a point in your business where outsourcing help is necessary. What has this process looked and felt like for you lately?
It’s been terrifying, thank you for asking!
To have someone else be entrusted with your creative energy and output—your name and art—is scary. That being said, having gained a little bit of administrative and communications help has done wonders for me being more present in the creative space. I do believe I am more available to creative output when I am not so beholden to the daily paperwork of the business.
Your work and your community are almost impossible to separate — murals at local businesses, art installs at bars, custom pieces for people you actually know. What does it mean to you to make art that actively lives inside your community?
It’s my favorite way to do it! It's so much more personal and joyful when there is such familiarity. It's a tether to your people and common spaces. When you know the community so well, and you’re personally invested, I feel you get the most genuine product.
What keeps you grounded when life is this full?
I have an incredible core unit of people in my life. I am one of four sisters (we talk nonstop) and I have a wonderful husband and incredible friends. I feel quite lucky that I have a true tribe that rides unconditionally, and it makes the subconscious safety net all that much stronger. I feel very grounded in being able to have true loves with whom I can be myself freely, regardless of my production and my art. It’s a bonus, but I have a base that loves me regardless of the profession.
What are you consuming right now that you haven’t stopped thinking about lately?
Honestly, I've been obsessed with the idea of collections and anthologies lately—not in the curated museum sense, but the accidental kind: the personal archives people build without ever calling them that. Your purse. Your car console. The bowl by your front door where keys and receipts and a random hair tie all end up living together.
I keep thinking about how those spaces are basically subconscious self-portraits. Nobody sits down and designs their entryway bowl—it just accumulates into this weird, specific charm bracelet of a life. And I find that so much more honest than anything intentionally curated. It's like everyone's unknowingly building a diary out of objects.
That's kind of the lens I bring to my own work too—finding the meaning that's already sitting in the stuff people don't think twice about, and giving it a little more weight. This is currently represented in how I am painting custom tote bags.
What's something people wouldn't initially guess about you?
I drink zero coffee. None of this productivity comes from a latte.
What does success look like in this season, right now?
Currently it’s work/life balance. Success for me has been actually paring down projects to be more present in my daily life. I’ve been so fortunate to create consistent client relationships that allow me more stability as a working artist, and therefore I’m trying to work less (see: under 60/70 hours a week). Success is getting to enjoy the strides I’ve made in my career that allow me to be more present.
What's something you wish more women and creatives talked about openly?
I wish more women and creatives talked openly about the tax of "doing it all,” specifically the toll of trying to be fully in creative flow while also being fully available. Nobody talks about what it actually costs to be mid-project, mid-obsession, completely consumed by an idea—and still be expected to be present. Still be the friend who checks in, the partner who shows up, the one holding the home together.
There's this myth that creativity is supposed to look effortless, like it just flows out of you between errands. But real creative work asks for your whole brain. It's greedy. And so is being a good partner, a good friend, a present person in your own home. Nobody prepares you for how much it costs to keep switching between those two full-time jobs, or how guilty you feel when you're not fully in either one.
I don't think the answer is "balance,” I think it's honesty. I wish we normalized saying "I'm in it right now" without guilt. Saying "I need a minute before I can be present" without it meaning you love people less. The stress isn't a personal failing, it's just the actual math of trying to hold multiple full selves at once.
Current favorite Denver haunts?
So many! Pon Pon, Rougarou, Thin Man Tavern, Elemental, esp hifi, Uncle, Yacht Club, Larimer Liquors, Cart Driver, Cohesion Brewing, Jake’s Roadhouse…
Where can people find BoneBLACK, and is there anything coming up you want people to know about?
Instagram (@boneblackstore) is the best place to get up-to-date info! I will be on the East Coast for the majority of August on a little sabbatical, so I’m hoping some new personal pieces come out of that time.
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