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Willie Lamendola always was a regular ol’ blue-collar guy, a self-proclaimed coon-ass, but by no means an artist—at least not by his standards, despite being only six credit hours shy of a college degree in fine arts.

Today Lamendola (pictured above with his “Man in Hat” piece) creates 3-D folk art out of twisted old metal and weather-worn wood. Like the steel, tin and old wood that are his media, Lamendola took a long road to becoming artist.

For more than 20 years he pulled long shifts at chemical plants up and down the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.

He made the leap 10 years ago from blue-collar man to artist, debuting some of his free-form artwork at Jazz Fest. “In between those two weeks I quit my job at the plant and haven’t looked back since.”

His former co-workers used to scoff at his artistic aspirations, often shaking their heads and saying, “Willie, Willie, you never

gonna be an artist.” Not only did he make it, he signs his works “Willie/Willie.”

He creates mostly flowers, faces and fish, although he’s added paintings to his repertoire.

His work lies somewhere in the hazy neutral ground of folk art and outsider art. Despite his university artwork study, he creates much of his art through self-taught methods and unorthodox materials.

He crafts bold, brightly colored 3-D images on everything from old pizza pans to scraps of tin. If you’ve eaten at Parrain’s lately then chances are you’ve seen a Willie/Willie original. About 90% of the artwork in the restaurant is Lamendola’s.

“I feel so blessed to be able to make a living making my art,” he says. “It’s still so unbelievable to me. I still get so excited while I’m working, sometimes I forget to breathe.”

His work can be found at Gilley’s Gallery on Florida Boulevard, and his show at the Grapevine Café in Donaldsonville opened Dec. 16 and hangs through January.