An Artist's Life

Eighty-seven-old lifetime artist, Dan Wetta, a career accountant (who lived a distinctly different life through his work) put his dreams and unique vision of the world to canvas and paper throughout his life. Through oils, acrylics, watercolor, pen and ink, and even crayons, the artist recorded the life he saw, a life framed by a childhood in New Orleans and an education in a Louisiana seminary. He entered St. Joseph's Seminary just before the start of World War II and received his high school and junior college education there. But he joined the Army after graduation and continued college education at night later in Richmond, Virginia, where he raised his two sons. Over the years, the artist took art classes and private lessons and exhibited his work in many public showings, including exhibiting in The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. His art encompasses a vast variety of themes, laced with humor, satire, spirituality, and immense respect for life. Some of his work illustrate the artist's reflections on the conflict between science and religious teachings, notably the history of the Jews as recorded in the Old Testament. Some emphasize his humorous characterization of animal life, such as lions, tigers, and cows, while others colorfully express the mystical emotions of birds. This paperback edition focuses on the author's life in New Orleans and the subsequent destruction years later of the Bucktown community by Hurricane Katrina. Dan Wetta had painted and sketched much of Bucktown life in the 1980s and '90s, not knowing that he was recording a world that would disappear. The artist is making available for acquisition by a gallery or private collector the entire collection of his original art and cartoons, his work of a lifetime, in one complete set. Almost all are illustrated in the series of 7 volumes, El Artista: A Lifetime of Curiosity, and they will be published also in paperback in two or three volumes. An Artist's Life is the first of these.