Chuck Delpapa was spurred on by mentors and educators into a long career in the world of art. His entire profession was in interior design, home furnishings, trend merchandising, home trend research and product design/development. Early in his career he worked for two major department store corporations as Director of Home Fashion Merchandising.

He was born in Colorado where he spent the first half of his life. In 1982, he accepted a job with Higbee’s Department Store in Cleveland, and moved to Ohio along with his wife, Bea, and two teenage sons. Through the next 30 years, the kids grew up, his job changed, and they moved a few times, before settling for 17 years on 10 acres in rural Columbiana County in Ohio.  When he and Bea retired and downsized in 2011, they moved from their very rural life back to Cleveland.  From the beginning, Chuck embraced his new life in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood, and within a few months had picked up his long-neglected paint brush and began to record his surroundings.

Although Chuck’s undergraduate and graduate work was in fine arts, it was not until his move back to Cleveland in 2011, that he started to paint again. He has chronicled his treks through his neighborhood and his journeys well beyond. There may not be another collection of Cleveland’s iconic buildings and scenes as large as the one that Chuck has amassed. And the collection continues to grow.  His ability to capture the details of buildings and landscapes is exceptional, and his work has been extremely popular with his friends and neighbors.  Now, with the advent of the Tin Shop Website, he can share it with a much larger audience.