ABOUT

Billy Capozzoli started out as a sculptor, working in metal and wood. Then the Navy hired him as a specialty combination welder at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard — and the yard taught him everything: every process, every metal, including the difficult ones, stainless, brass, bronze, and aluminum.

When the shipyard closed, he went back to art — making sculpture, and working in the art departments of theater, film, and television, building sets, props, and special effects. In 2002 he fabricated the Delaware County Law Enforcement Memorial in Rose Tree Park: 34 abstract stainless steel figures, one for every county officer killed in the line of duty since 1902. In April 2024 his sculpture showed alongside Ed Buffman's in "Additive & Subtractive" at Prism Arts Philadelphia — Buffman carves away; Billy builds up.

He never went to art school. He took the craftsman-apprentice path, and he has studied architecture all his life, on his own, out of love for it. That love has a favorite subject.

"Stairs are functional art — art combined with the science of construction. Stairs are not just what I do. It is who I am."

As he puts it: "Artist isn't my title, it is my aspiration."