InTucker Magazine
September 2026
The Tucker Way – Smart Glass Jewelry
A little idea goes a long way. Just ask Kathleen Plate, founder of Smart Glass Jewelry and inventor of the patented technique for cutting post-consumer recycled glass bottles and firing them into circles and disks to create beautiful pieces of jewelry.
As a graduate student studying English literature, Plate was searching for a last minute birthday gift for a friend. With a history of crafting with her mother from her childhood days, Plate had long enjoyed working with her hands. She owned a soldering iron and various bits and bobs for projects, and she spotted an emerald green wine bottle. She knew the beautiful colored glass would make a stunning pair of earrings, so she broke open the bottle. The gift was a hit, and Plate began to make more jewelry from recycled glass.
“I started using bottles, not for any other reason than it was what I had, and I just saw the beauty in it,” Plate said.
Plate first used the kind of traditional stained glass method she had learned from childhood projects to break and work with the bottles, but she began experimenting with different ways to cut and fire the glass.
“I don’t ever use anything how it’s supposed to,” Plate said as she showcased the diamond bit band saws she uses to cut her glass. “But that machine can do what I want, so that’s how we can do such beautiful, delicate cuts with the bottles.”
Plate’s enterprise grew from a hobby selling at festivals and shows to her own studio on Lawrenceville Highway.
After some time, her work with glass bottles caught the eye of the Coca-Cola Company. “They cold called me,” Plate said. “’We want you to do what you do out of our bottles.’ And I was like, ‘This is a prank call.’”
It was no prank call. Plate’s website and online storefront, smartglassjewelry.com, now features a page for her Coca-Cola licensed glass jewelry collection. It includes earrings, bracelets and necklaces in the “antique clear” green-tinted Coca-Cola bottle glass as well as earrings and necklaces showcasing actual Coke labels.
“On one hand, I’m a very small level handcrafting artist, but I get to do it at this bigger level,” Plate said, “which is very nice.”
Their collaboration did not end there. Coca-Cola reached back out to Plate for a collaboration with Chick-fil-A. Virtually every Chick-fil-A location nationwide has a custom light fixture made in Kathleen Plate’s Smart Glass Jewelry studio out of recycled Coca-Cola bottles. Due to the porosity of glass, or lack thereof, Plate discovered that UV-activated glass-on-glass bonding is the only long term way to attach glass.
“I’m the person who gets called when they’re like, ‘We want to do this thing that doesn’t exist and we don’t really know how to do it,’” Plate said. “I didn’t know what I was doing, which is kind of good because if you don’t really know what you’re not supposed to do, then you’ll do things that nobody’s done.”
Plate’s mother was a chemist and her father a mechanic; she described using her father’s garage workshop and tools for various projects in her youth. Her parents’ perspectives influenced her own. “I’m probably more like a mad scientist than I am an artist,” Plate joked, “figuring out the machines and how to do things…I’m definitely an artist, but I’m probably the most analytical artist that you will ever meet.”
While Plate is unafraid to stretch her skills with custom projects for household names, she most enjoys handcrafting jewelry with her recycled glass. “Every single one is unique,” she said of her pieces.
As an artist who has run a sustainable business for thirty years, Plate advises young artists to pay attention to the monetary side of the work. “I don’t say ‘be smart about the money’ because it’s not helpful,” Plate said. “One thing I did is that every time I did a show, I would take some of that money and set it aside.
“Because the thing that I didn’t understand when I was younger is that the more successful you become, the more your studio is growing, the more cash you will need. You might need to buy larger amounts of ear wires. You might need a new machine. You will be able to take advantage of opportunities a lot easier if you have a nest egg that’s locked and loaded for those opportunities.
“The more thoughtful you are, the easier you will be able to step in and grow.”
What’s next for Kathleen Plate’s Tucker Way?
“I will be looking for places that I can give back to younger artists and mentors,” she said. “I would love to do a curriculum for an art school or something about the financial side of it.”