Being One of Oprah’s “Favorite Things” Was Only the Start for This Texas Coppersmith

In his Austin warehouse, Jonathan Beall sips water from one of his copper cups, an Ayurvedic practice said to stimulate digestion and increase immunity. He points to a hand-carved solid-copper vase made using 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.” When Beall launched Sertodo Copper, in 1997, he traveled the U.S., cold-calling…

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