A Passion for Making Furniture and Guitars in Sugar Grove, North Carolina--Chris Capozzoli

Interview with Chris Capozzoli, conducted at Cappozoli Woodworking in Sugar Grove, North Carolina, by Willard Watson, for the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and "The We We Worked" exhibition from the Smithsonian. This story was collected in conjunction with the Museum on Main Street program at the Smithsonian Institution.

Who are you, When and where were you born? "I am Chris Capozzoli and I was born in Charlotte, NC in 1980."

What did your parents do for a living? Did you contribute to the family income or help parents in their work in any way? "My dad worked in radio, he started out as a disc jockey and moved up to sales, wrote commercials and dealt with selling airtime. My mom worked for Belk’s store services, like the Belk Headquarters, they’re Charlotte based, she worked on computers. I did not contribute to the income; I took away from it." (Laughs) What do you do for a living? "I build custom stringed instruments and custom furniture for a living."

How long have to worked there? "I’ve been doing it for myself since 2010 to going on seven years and I did it for another company for close to 11 years prior to that. So just about 20 years’ experience wood working."

How’d you get into wood working? "I always had something I wanted to make and had like primitive tools in my dad’s garage, and I discovered one of my neighbors had a wood shop, so I would go over there and bug him as a kid. Get him to cut some wood for me so I could put a project together. You know, building a desk, some shelves for my bedroom, or a downhill like little boxcar kinda thing, tree houses, the typical childhood things. Then I discovered another neighbor had a little shed out back where he was building guitars, and that totally fascinated me. And he lent me some literature and I would go over there and kinda stand behind him and watch him and bug him, until it got to the point where I was like, 'I want to build my own guitar! I gotta do this.' So as a senior in high school there was an exit project, had to cover all the subjects, I decided that’d be a good thing to do so I built my first crude, far from what I do now, guitar..."

Read the full transcript below.

Asset ID: 7790