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If you know CMD today, you probably know that I design everything from my shop and studio in Asbury Park, New Jersey, while every piece of CMD jewelry is handmade by my small production team in Trumansburg, New York. What you might not know is how we ended up with a production studio in a tiny Finger Lakes village in the first place.
It wasn't part of some carefully mapped-out business plan. Like a lot of the biggest changes in CMD's history, it happened because life changed, the business changed, and we figured out a way forward that made sense for both.
I started CMD more than 20 years ago in my Hayes Valley apartment in San Francisco using money I'd earned working as a server at Zuni Cafe. In the beginning, it was just me, a hammer, a torch and a little desk. Eventually, that solo operation grew into a small business with a team, a storefront and a community of customers who allowed me to keep doing this work.
One of the most important additions to that little team came in 2012, when Aryana joined CMD. After graduating with her BFA in Jewelry and Metal Arts from California College of the Arts, Ary started as my production assistant and quickly became my right-hand woman. Her strengths in fabrication and production became essential to CMD, and she helped me grow the business in ways I couldn't have managed alone.
In 2015, Ary left San Francisco and returned to her hometown of Ithaca, New York with her husband. They wanted to buy a home and build a life somewhere that felt more affordable and sustainable than the Bay Area.
Not long afterward, I called to see how her new job was going. It turned out it wasn't quite what she'd hoped for, and meanwhile CMD was continuing to grow. Ary started working for me remotely from New York, which planted the seed for a much bigger change.
At the same time, producing jewelry in San Francisco was becoming increasingly difficult. The cost of living made it harder to build the kind of small production team I wanted while paying people fairly and creating something sustainable for the long haul.
Eventually, we found a studio space in Trumansburg, about 20 minutes outside Ithaca in the Finger Lakes, and made the decision to officially relocate CMD's production to Upstate New York.
What started as a practical solution became an incredibly important part of CMD's story. Trumansburg gave us room to build a production studio and a way of working that made much more sense for our small team.
Today, Aryana and Sam make every CMD piece there by hand. Metal is cut, soldered, filed, sanded, polished and finished in that studio before pieces make their way to customers, retailers and clients around the country.
Our production studio isn't open to the public, but it's where so much of what you eventually see as a finished CMD piece actually happens. It's also where our Reconstruction and Custom projects move from sketches and conversations into tangible objects you can wear.
In May 2025, the reason I originally sat down to write this post was another small milestone: we were moving into a brighter, slightly larger studio right next door to our existing space.
It wasn't a dramatic move across the country or some enormous expansion. We were basically moving next door. But after two decades of building CMD one decision at a time, I've learned that those smaller milestones deserve to be celebrated too.
We're now 21 years into this business, and the Trumansburg studio is still an essential piece of how CMD works. I design from Asbury Park, Ary and Sam bring those designs to life in Upstate New York, and somehow the miles between us have become part of the rhythm of this little company.
CMD has taken me from a desk in a San Francisco apartment to a storefront on the West Coast, back home to the Jersey Shore and, through Ary, all the way to a tiny village in the Finger Lakes. None of it happened exactly the way I could have predicted. I'm pretty grateful for that.
Here's to the people, places and unexpected turns that become part of the story.
Colleen
© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: May 14, 2025
Updated: August 22, 2026
How incredibly exciting! Sounds like a “win win” all the way around. Wishing you, Colleen and your amazing staff/family an amazing and prosperous future!
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Tiffani Childress
May 16, 2025
Congratulations, my friend! It has been such a pleasure to watch your business grow over the years (as well as my CMD collection)! Wishing you the very best in your next twenty years!