MADE IN TEXAS
Inside a Copper Mind Jonathan Beall makes modern kitchenware, barware, and water dispensers that last a lifetime.
BY AMANDA ALBEE
When Beall launched Sertodo Copper, in 1997, he traveled the U.S., cold-calling ho- tels and restaurants to sell Mexican-made copper cookware and chafing dishes. Three years later, he moved to Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán, a town with a coppersmithing tradition that predates its founding nearly five hundred years ago. There, he joined a copper community led by James Metcalf, the late sculptor and educator who reinvigorated local artisanal traditions. An apprentice- ship with copper maestro Máximo Velázquez Correa had Beall forging hundreds of nails and tools, including hammers and chisels, to cultivate a “manual intelligence” that he says is in decline among modern American creators, who sidestep material knowledge for computer-aided design. To read the full story, please subscribe to Texas Monthly.
IN HIS AUSTIN warehouse, Jonathan Beall sips water from one of his copper cups, an Ayurvedic practice said to stimulate diges- tion and increase immunity. He points to a hand-carved solid-copper vase made us- ing traditional techniques, such as melting recycled copper into ingots and repeatedly annealing and forging the mass into shape, a skill he learned in Mexico. It reminds him of a similar piece he encountered on a trip to Sayulita, on that country’s Pacific coast, almost thirty years ago—he can still see it glittering in the dawn light among a peddler’s wares. “I had never seen anything like it,” he says. “I didn’t know what was happening, but I had a big feeling.”
OUT THERE
Meanwhile, In Texas A man dressed in shorts and sneakers was seen cruising down the center lane of westbound Interstate 40 in Amarillo on an electric scooter . In a cave near Marfa, archaeologists discovered remnants of an atlatl, a straight-flying boomerang, and other components of whatmay be the oldest intact hunting kit found in North America. Almost four thousand Kerrville residents lost power for two hours after a ringtail came into contact with equipment at a substation. On National Beer Day, a train collided with the trailer of a semitruck near Saginaw, spilling hundreds of cans of beer around the tracks. Nearly three thousand people and 1,300 dogs descended on a ranch in Bee Cave for Texas’s largest annual golden retriever meetup . Hoping to steal a car, a man threw a rock through the window of a Tyler dealership, injured himself while entering through the broken glass, and called 911 for help getting out of the building, even though several doors were unlocked. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was bitten by an ostrich while visiting a wildlife park in North Texas. —Meher Yeda
Jonathan Beall polishes a copper vessel at his com- pany’s workshop in Austin on April 24, 2025.
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NEW BRAUNFELS EDITION
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