The Story Behind the CMD Hand Project

One morning in 2022 during my regular journaling session, I had an idea for a photoshoot. I was still relatively new to Asbury Park, New Jersey, and I wanted to find a way to connect the jewelry I had been making for years with the people in this community I was beginning to call home.

I imagined photographing friends, new faces and some of the people who make Asbury Park what it is, all wearing CMD in their own way. Different ages, different styles, different lives and, most importantly, different hands. I wanted to see what would happen when the same jewelry left my studio and became part of someone else's personal style.

Just four months later, the CMD Hand Project came to life.

Why Hands?

I've always been fascinated by hands. We create, work, make music, cook, build, draw, write, hammer, lift, hold and communicate with them. As a jewelry designer, they're also where so much of my work eventually lives.

No two sets of hands look alike. They carry wrinkles, scars, calluses, tattoos, polished nails, chipped nails and all kinds of evidence of the lives we're living. Some people love their hands. Others barely think about them. Put jewelry on them, though, and suddenly those differences become part of the design.

Real People, Real Personal Style

For the Hand Project, I photographed nine people from the Asbury Park community wearing a mix of CMD Everyday and special occasion jewelry. These weren't traditional jewelry models. They were artists, creatives, small business owners, friends and neighbors, each with a distinct sense of self.

That was the point. I've never designed jewelry with one particular kind of person in mind, and I loved seeing that idea become visible through these photographs. A ring stack that looked one way in my hands became something completely different on someone else's. The jewelry didn't change. The person wearing it did.

The Hand Project Today

The Hand Project was originally created around a collection of twelve new CMD designs, but its real legacy became the people and photographs behind it. The original collection is no longer available as a standalone collection, but many of the people featured in the project are still part of the Asbury Park community, and the idea behind it continues to feel very much like CMD.

Jewelry becomes personal when someone puts it on. It gets stacked differently, worn differently and eventually carries pieces of that person's life with it. Looking back at the Hand Project years later, that's what I love most about it. It wasn't really twelve new designs or nine models. It was nine completely different interpretations of CMD.

Keep an eye out around the blog for the individual Hand Project stories and the people who helped bring this idea to life. I'm so grateful to every one of them for letting me photograph their hands, hear a little bit of their story and see my work through their eyes.

With love,
Colleen

© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: April 28, 2022
Updated: August 21, 2026