Coffelt started his "Miniature Clothing Project" in 1993.  To date, he has miniaturized by hand over 450 keepsake garments. He has the unique ability to make detailed and exact miniature replicas and to date, his roster includes girl scout uniforms, work uniforms, prom dresses, pajamas, wedding gowns, winter coats, t-shirts, lingerie, grandfather's pajamas, grandmother's house dresses, aunt's sweaters, evening wear, cardigans, flack jackets, baby clothing, men's suits, doggie coats, jumpsuits, and even military uniforms. No job is too big, or rather, small for Mr Coffelt's detailed artistry.

Mr. Coffelt is currently taking commissions for the "Miniature Clothing Project". Each piece is created with the utmost of craft and detail by hand and keeps the integrity of the original garment, it is also presented with a story, your stories about the pieces and why you chose to do a particular garment.For further details and rates on how to get your on-of-a-king treasure created, please contact Jon Coffelt directly joncoffeltart@gmail.com or 347 277 8889

The pieces are very powerful as these items embody the essence of its wearer, a poignant nostalgia for its recipient  and a unique experience for any viewer.  Some notable commissions include a miniaturized a cashmere beaded sweater for Frank Lloyd Wright's daughter Catherine Wright (also the mother of actress Anne Baxter) from the 1930's, Dolly Parton, The Lawson sister's (Barbara, Becky and Betty) mother's dress that she wore at 4 years. 

Some links: 

FiberARTS

Daily Art Muse

Video of "Communion" exhibition in Minneapolis (by Eric Buenger)

More Images (on Facebook)
Blogspot

The "Miniature Clothing Project" will be on exhibit in April 2010 at the Georgia State College and University Museum.  This project has been exhibited by the Susan Hensel Gallery, Minneapolis MN; the Rymer Gallery, Nashville TN; the "Beyond The Border" art fair, San Diego CA; Ammo Arts, New Orleans LA; The Livingroom gallery, Salt Lake City UT; Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston SC; Marcia Wood Gallery Atlanta, GA; Space301, Mobile AL; Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt Center Gallery, Boca Raton FL; Alabama State Council on the Arts, Montgomery AL; Space One Eleven, Birmingham, AL.

Jon Coffelt grew up in Whitwell,TN in the mountain community of Griffith Creek near Palmer and then spent many years in Birmingham, Alabama where he and his partner Shawn Boley and their friend Janet Hughes owned and operated AGNES a gallery that specialized in Social Agenda Photography and Artist's Books. Birmingham is where developed his art after learning to paint from his grandfather while growing up in Tennessee. Coffelt currently lives and works in downtown New York City. 

Press and Quotes: 
 
Haydn Shaughnessy Gallery, Cork County Ireland 
His miniature commissions are among the most powerful art works I have 
come across. In them, Jon takes items of a client's clothing and reproduces these 
in miniature and then sets them along side other items of miniaturized clothes. Collectively, they become a memory of ourselves and/or those around us. " - Haydn Shaughnessy

"House and Garden: Twists on Domesticity" (Andy Warhol Foundation Grant) 
curator, Anne Arrasmith Space One Eleven, Birmingham, AL

"Coffelt's miniature clothes - each garment a portrait of a distinct individual - merges the feminine, domestic chore of sewing with the act of painting. Instead of relying upon his customary paintbrush and wooden panels, Coffelt is creating surrogate paintings with these patterned garments. This painterly emphasis, stressing the color, texture, weave and gloss of his chosen fabrics, is what separates Coffelt's undertaking from the painstaking labors of a miniaturist such as Charles LeDray. 
Coffelt produces clothes as intimate homages to acquaintances, and friends.- David Moos, chief curator at AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), Toronto  

"The Longest Winter" Florida Atlantic University curator, Gean Moreno 
critic, Damarys Ocana Boca Raton, FL 
Coffelt sews, and if the story that he made his Clothing series while bedridden is to be believed, he fits into Moreno's idea snugly. The miniature items -- among them a flowered party dress, a shift, a fringed cowboy jacket, striped pajamas -- are the kind of obsessive, fetishistic work that, once discovered in some serial killer's home, addles the neighbors' evening news sound bites that though ''he was nice and mostly kept to himself,'' they knew all the time that there was something weird about him.  
-Damarys Ocana Miami Herald 
  . 
"Tiny Treasures" Nancy Raabe for Birmingham News, Birmingham Alabama 
The latter, a series of immaculately hand sewn miniature garments, 
will be on view starting Friday at Space One Eleven,  "House and Garden: Twists on Domesticity. 
"Perfectly finished inside and out -- except for buttonholes, which proved impossible on the tiny scale that became his world -- each article took him about eight to 10 hours to complete. They're entirely sewn by and, although Coffelt does admit taking advantage of preexisting features, such as hems, when appropriate. "Doing these by hand is a commentary on our society," Coffelt noted. "Just about everything canbe made by a machine, I chose the hard way to do this." 
-Nancy Raabe 

"Familiar Reality:  A Celebration of Alabama Art" curator, Georgine 
Clarke, Alabama State Council for the Arts,  Montgomery, AL 
"Although at first glance the casual observer may assume these garments are skillfully sewn doll clothing, they are not. The artist refers to them as "relics", "soft sculpture", or "memory clothes."  Each article 
originated as a vision Coffelt had of a particular person. This installation might  be viewed as a type of  quilt, a collage of treasured fabrics and memories. Each object provides thoughts about the significance and symbolism of  garments as they represent the people who wear them." 
-Georgine Clarke