Dan Wetta

Biography

I was born October 10, 1927, and I grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930's. I enlisted in the Army in 1946 and was stationed at Camp Lee, Virginia, near Richmond, where I met my wife and settled down.
My father was a commercial artist, a steel-and-copper-plate engraver for Dameron Pierson Stationery Company in New Orleans. He was foreman of their printing department. One of his tasks was to engrave printing plates to create paper money for Central and South American countries.
I began drawing and painting as a child but did not want to become a commercial artist like my father because I wanted to paint things that interested me, so I made a living as an accountant-auditor.
I have exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and I was a member of the Richmond Artists' Association for about fifteen years.
We used to have fun exhibiting at malls until one day a City of Richmond sales tax agent come by with a note pad and began writing down the names of artists who did not have a sales tax license.
When I got the city license, the IRS required me to file a quarterly FICA tax form, and the Commonwealth of Virginia said I had to have a business license. Then the malls got worried about liability, and they made us buy liability insurance.
Rules and regulations were taking up so much of my painting time that I said, "To heck with it!" And I quit exhibiting. As a result, I have accumulated quite a few paintings over the years.

Books

This member has not published any books.