Warsaw Jewelry Maker Hopes for Votes in Martha Stewart Contest
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Jordan Fouts-
Warsaw artist Roxanne Coffelt is in the running to have her asian-inspired jewelry nationally recognized in the Martha Stewart American Made competition. Coffelt’s Shanghai Tai line of fused glass and precious metal clay earrings and pendants is a nominee in the style category of the national contest. Winners receive $10,000 and recognition during an event in New York in October. Voting by category runs until Sept. 13, followed by grand prize voting Sept. 17 to 23 and winner announcements Sept. 24. Coffelt, an accountant by trade, started making jewelry in 2005, three years after moving to Shanghai for her husband’s job. As a “tai tai” – a wife – barred from working on her own because of her husband’s contract, she had to find ways to occupy herself. One of those was buying pearls very cheaply for import, which, being an accountant, she thought would be a good money-making opportunity. She learned to make strung bead jewelry after moving back to Warsaw in late 2004. Then she expanded into wire-wrapping, fused dichronic glass and precious metal clay, which is clay that contains fine silver and leaves only solid metal when fired in a kiln. “I started out just stringing jewelry, and selling at local shows. I had no idea how much competition there is, because almost everybody strings jewelry,” she remarked. After a few more classes, she eventually bought her own little kiln. She described the stringing, sculpting and firing process for making her iridescent glass beads, some with etched designs of dragonflies, turtles and frogs, or even shaped like pieces of candy corn; and pieces like dragons and Chinese characters embossed in copper. “When I fuse glass, it involves cutting and cleaning the glass before layering it the way I want it on the kiln shelf. Then I fuse it in the kiln at almost 1,500 degrees F.,” she said. “With metal clay I roll it out like clay. I can put texture in it, stamp it, put it in a mold. I have a mold of a bamboo design that I carved out of an eraser.” Her own style is still evolving, she noted. “Artists are supposed to have a cohesive body of work, and since I do so many different things I am still working on a cohesive style.” Coffelt set up her company in 2009, became certified in precious metal clay and began selling online at www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/ShanghaiTai Her work is also available in Lakeland Art Gallery in Pierceton. But she noted the majority of her sales still come from art shows. She’s also taken top awards in Professional Crafts in the Kosciusko County Fair in the past few years. “Many of my pieces are one of a kind,” she wrote for her bio at www.marthastewart.com/americanmade/nominee/83003 “I am constantly working to improve my skills, my product and my display. My business is important because, in an age when so many products are produced overseas, I actually make a product that is produced in the USA.”
