Studio Journal: Updates, Insights, and Tales from My Life

Step into my Studio Journal, where glitter meets grit and every day brings a new adventure in jewelry-making. From behind-the-scenes chaos to little sparks of inspiration (and the occasional cat cameo), this is where I share the stories, insights, and mishaps that make life in the studio anything but ordinary.

A woman sitting at a cluttered workbench with a black and white cat sitting on her lap. The workspace has tools and supplies around.
Debra Adelson Debra Adelson

Playing with Color

Recently, Pantone announced their Color of the Year, an annual choice that often influences fashion, design, and color trends. This year, they chose Cloud Dancer, a soft shade of white.

My immediate reaction was, really??

White?? A white palette felt bland and completely bored me. Hearing it framed with broader cultural and political associations genuinely angered me. I was annoyed that somewhere, a boardroom full of seemingly intelligent people sat around talking about what’s happening in global culture right now, and all they could come up with was off-white. Seeing a tone that is essentially the absence of color elevated as the color of the moment was, honestly, irritating.

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Artist Life Debra Adelson Artist Life Debra Adelson

Starting Over Every Year: Behind the Scenes of a Juried Art Show Lifer

Now that my 2025 show season is officially over, I find myself in that familiar, slightly terrifying place every art-show artist knows well: starting from scratch. The cycle begins again almost immediately—applications for the next year already sent out into the universe, waiting for results. Because every show I do is juried, each year is a gamble. I never know what my schedule will look like until the decisions roll in. I throw all my cards into the air and hope something lands.

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Artist Life, studio Happenings Debra Adelson Artist Life, studio Happenings Debra Adelson

Chasing Cheese: What Being an Artist Taught Me About Adaptation

Have you ever heard the story Who Moved My Cheese? (I’m not even sure I have the title exactly right, but you get the idea.) It’s about two mice navigating a maze in search of cheese. Every day, the scientists put the cheese in the same spot, and the mice run through the maze and eat it.

Then one day, the cheese is gone. The mice retrace the same steps that always worked, but no luck—no cheese. Finally, one of the mice tries a different path and finds it. The other mouse refuses to try anything new and keeps coming up empty.

The moral is simple: to keep finding the cheese, you have to be willing to adapt.

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Studio Happenings Debra Adelson Studio Happenings Debra Adelson

Meet My Team: The Real Studio Staff

As many of you know, I’ve been on a mission to whip my website into true e-commerce shape. I sprinted like mad to get most of my to-do list finished before my Black Friday sale—and thanks to your support, it was my most successful yet! That success has given me even more motivation to keep revamping things. Shockingly, the task turned out to be much bigger than I expected, and I’m now fully accepting that this is a slow-and-steady, overtime kind of project. I’m committed to making my website genuinely shoppable: better product descriptions, better photos, and more of them—especially showing how pieces look on the neck, hand, wrist, and on real people.

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Artist Life Debra Adelson Artist Life Debra Adelson

Why I’m Starting a Blog & Our Conversation on Philly Has heART

Why I’m Starting a Blog

I’ve been making my work for years — creating pieces that never existed before, exploring form, texture, and color, and shaping one-of-a-kind objects that I hope bring a little magic into someone’s everyday life. I love what I do, and I’m endlessly fascinated by the materials, the process, and the small discoveries that happen at the bench every day.

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