The Streets of My Childhood
on the Jersey Shore

It feels like another lifetime when I think about cruising around on my bike with my brother and sister near Wanamassa School. We lived just a stone’s throw away, in a neighborhood full of working-class families, including ours. My mom raised three kids on a teacher’s salary, and I learned pretty early what hard work, resourcefulness and making the most of what you had looked like.

As kids, we knew it was time to head home when the sun started setting and we could smell dinner being put on the table. There were no phones keeping us connected and certainly no screens following us everywhere we went. I spent hours after school in my bedroom with pencils, paper, crayons and whatever else I could turn into something. Looking back, I’m certain a lot of my creativity grew out of having all that room to wander, make things and entertain myself.

Coming Full Circle in Asbury Park

When I moved back to New Jersey in 2020 and made Asbury Park home, there was something pretty wild about realizing I had landed less than a mile from the apartment where I grew up. After years in Virginia, Washington D.C., San Francisco and plenty of places in between, I had somehow found my way back to the same little stretch of the Jersey Shore where so much of me began.

That feeling became part of the inspiration behind my Full Circle Collection. The name felt especially fitting. This collection was a chance to pay homage to the streets and places that shaped me while creating something completely new from them.

Turning Childhood Places Into Jewelry

I named pieces in the collection after streets that bring me right back to my childhood here on the Jersey Shore. Wanamassa School sits on Bendermere Avenue, which became the namesake for the Bendermere Earrings. Their simple, open forms somehow remind me of the freedom and simplicity of those years. For a smaller-scale version of the design, there are the Grasmeres.

I’ve spent more than two decades designing jewelry, but I still love how an idea can begin somewhere completely unexpected. Sometimes it starts with a shape sketched on a piece of paper. Sometimes it begins with a street you rode your bike down when you were eight years old.

There’s something meaningful about being able to look backward and see the little threads connecting who you were to what you eventually became. I certainly didn’t know that the kid making art in her bedroom would grow up to make jewelry for a living, or that I’d eventually find my way back to almost exactly where I started. Life has a funny way of bringing things Full Circle.

Feeling grateful for the long way home,
Colleen

© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: September 16, 2022
Updated: August 21, 2026