Nicola "Nico" Giampietro

Funeral arrangements are pending at this time.

Originally from Bari, Italy, Nico always enjoyed working with his hands. Inspired by and named after his grandfather Nicola Vinciquerra, Nico grew with a desire to do wood work just like the well-known furniture craftsman, Vinciquerra. Captivated by the textures and smells that come from various types of woods, Nico crafted his first piece at 7-years-old, when he created a flute within two days with wood he found in a trashcan.

Nico continued to do woodwork as a hobby, creating even larger, more complex pieces. In high school at the time, Nico built a bedroom suite complete with an armoire for his parents.  After graduating high school, he went on to serve in the Italian Calvary while doing some woodwork in his spare time.

For a short period in Nico’s life, woodwork was not his main interest.  He fell in to music, like his father Giuseppe Giampietro, a former classical violist and artist.  After Giuseppe purchased Nico’s first set of drums, Nico started touring Europe with a jazz band. He practiced his woodwork hobby less frequently, until his music career ended. Then Nico accepted jobs with small Germany companies, creating furniture, knickknacks and more.  In 1984, Nico traveled to America solely to help his sister, whose husband, an America citizen, became ill. He eventually grew closer to the country and later made the decision to stay in the U.S., where he met his wife KellySue Giampietro, who passed away in 2017. In 1994, he started creating pieces for Dallas County businesses, organizations and individual citizens at Nico’s Custom Woodwork, located in Valley Grande.  He used walnut, cherry, cypress, cedar purpleheart and other woods to design anything from simple desks to large butterfly replicas for customers.

He spent June 2008 to September 2008 creating 47 six-foot solid, treated wood butterflies, which were strategically placed around Selma to represent Selma’s title as the butterfly capital city of Alabama. The work was part of Dallas County Arts Alliance’s Butterfly Project.