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About Joseph E. Billotti, S.J., PhD

Joseph E. Billotti, S.J., Ph.D., was into arts and crafts as far back as he can remember. He pencil-drew his furniture (including a perspective of a ¾-grand piano), taught himself free sketching, and colored whatever pictures he could find. He constructed the erector set version of the Coney Island Parachute Jump and made hollow hand-puppets from clay and paper.

More Than Arts

After joining the Jesuits, Joseph continued acting and worked as a stage manager while teaching high school mathematics. He also designed playbill covers and took lessons in pottery wheels and kilns. Then, administration and missionary work limited his time for artistic creations. He did, however, serve for four years as the Director of Ponape Agriculture and Trade School on the Island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. There, he dabbled in drafting and machine tooling in wood and metal.

Artistic Since High School

In high school, he hand-tooled calf and cowhide women's pocketbooks with linings, shoulder straps, and change purses. He also bartered leather lacing products with a store to obtain hand-tooled silver clasps to use on his pocketbooks. Joseph was on the high school stage crew for three years, and he played Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in his senior year.

Life as a Painter

Joseph's acrylic painting began in 2012 when he took a course in color and acrylic painting from Fr. Michael F. Tunney, S.J., Ph.D., a professor of art at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. Joseph seemed to take to it immediately, even successfully submitting a painting to the college's art publication, Quadrangle. He also works in pastels, watercolors, and palette acrylics. In the last few years, Joseph was blessed to be encouraged and mentored by Fr. Oscar Magnan, S.J., Ph.D. of St. Peter's University in Jersey City, NJ.