Leon Kortekamp is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and artist who lives with his wife, Ginny in Belmont, California. He grew up in rural Iowa, and memories of those formative years are often reflected in his work. It is from this perspective that he examines the vicissitudes of contemporary urban life.   

After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at Loras College, he was drafted into military service during the Vietnam War and served two years with the US Navy in the Admiral's Public Information Office aboard the First Fleet Flagship USS Saint Paul.  

   Following his military tour of duty, he was granted a full tuition scholarship to the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting.

       In his early years, he had solo exhibitions at the Snite Museum of Art and The Hesburgh Library Gallery. He also exhibited his work in the Annual Michiana Tri-state Exhibition, where he won honors in painting and sculpture.  

       Following the completion of his degree at the University of Notre Dame, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Ginny, and their children, where he took a teaching position as chairman of the fine arts department at Notre Dame High School in Belmont, California.  The same year he received recognition for his hard-edge painting, Bayshore Dawn, in the San Francisco Art Association’s San Francisco International Airport Art Enrichment Program.

      In 1982, he took a teaching position as a professor in the Art Department at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California, where he taught sculpture, 3-D design, film photography and Art History for the next thirty-eight years.  During those years he exhibited his work primarily in The Wiegand Gallery on the NDNU campus. 

       As a short fiction author, he often published his artwork as illustrations of his writing appearing in literary journals like Ploughshares, Dime Show Review, Harpoon Review, Every Day Fiction, and others.  A collection of his published short stories and flash fiction, titled, Affirmations, is featured on his website:  leonkortenkamp.com - Project Page

       In 1990, his attraction to things spiritual led to his ordination as a deacon in the Archdiocese of San Francisco and to his appointment as Director of Deacon Formation for the Archdiocese.  Drawing on his background in medieval art history, he was also appointed Administrator of the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in the North Beach District of San Francisco. 

       His current exhibitions continue to feature crossover works involving calligraphic imagery, paintings, monotypes, mixed media collage and assemblage. Recent writing includes poetry as well as short fiction, often illustrated with brushed-plate monotypes or computer enhanced photographs.  He keeps a studio and office in Belmont, California and can be reached by email at leonpk@comcast.net.