MADE ON ISLAND
The Copperworks:
A Must-See Art & Antiques Destination in Menemsha
By Amelia Smith
Scott McDowell first saw Menemsha on a weekend visit to the Island in 1971. “That was a lot of fish ago,” he says. In the summers, he’s a charter captain, and he makes copper fish and silver jewelry year-round. “Everything in my life I’ve done is just self-taught,” he says. “When I was a little kid, I used to build models, and I messed around with jewelry in the late ‘60s.” The second person he met on the island was a jeweler in Edgartown who hired Scott to fix jewelry. A couple of years later he bought the store and worked with his friend Gino from New York.
“It was pretty much party central,” he says of his store in those days. “If there was fishing at Wasque, the shop was closed.” In winter, he put on a hammer holster and made $2.25 an hour as a carpenter. Eventually he became a contractor, and one day, when his daughter was a newborn, a mason left a piece of copper behind on the jobsite. Scott took it home, where he cut and shaped the copper into a little codfish. Beth Larsen saw it and asked if he could make a bigger one for her wall. That led to another, and another, and another. He sold copper fish through shops in Vineyard Haven and through catalogs where he would get 500-piece orders for a single design. “It paid for the mortgage and I bought a house on the hill in Menemsha,” he says.
Menemsha was a lively spot, Scott says. “I could see all my friends going out to fish. The fishing scene was still pretty vibrant when I moved here. Sometimes there would be up to 25 draggers here. Once a week, we would have a party and someone would cook for everyone. My whole social life was on the dock.”
Decades of contracting and building for people left him feeling burned out on the trades, so he took up charter fishing in the summer and made copper fish and jewelry all winter long. After getting divorced, he moved into an apartment over the Menemsha Deli and rented out an empty storefront downstairs, for a workshop. People started coming in to buy things. He put antiques, collectibles, and art on the walls. The Copperworks got bigger, and Scott brought in more artists and antiques.
His partner Annette, the patina master, gradually took charge of the retail store. Together, they go antique picking, filling the small, historic space with art and antiques. To one side of the retail area of the store, Scott keeps a small workshop where templates for his fish decorate one wall and racks of tools hang over a workbench, and his boat is on the dock right around the corner.
If you’d like to catch a glimpse of Menemsha’s nautical history, or copper fish as chandeliers, wall hangings, and more, swing by The Copperworks in Menemsha soon.
The Copperworks can do custom orders, give them a call and discuss your ideas.
The Copperworks Shop is located at 22 Basin Road in Menemsha. 508.645.2995, scott@bassnblue.com, the-copperworks.com