The Alison Wonderland Jewelry Story: 2015-2018

The adventure began in 2013, when I took a sabbatical from writing and embarked on a re-education.

I studied art and craft at The Art Students League, The School of Visual Arts, The National Academy Museum and School, The Fashion Institute of Technology, The Center for Book Arts, The 92nd Street Y, and other places around New York city. My range was wide: I learned the art and craft of bookmaking, print making, embroidery, drawing, painting, mixed media arts, and more.

But I eventually focused in on jewelry. I studied metal work, cold connections, enameling, wax carving, resin casting, global knotting and macrame styles, bead weaving…basically, every technique I could find.

I knew I’d eventually need to turn this education into an income-generator, but the business part actually started almost by accident, with three not-very high falutin’ words: Fuck This Shit.

In a moment of total frustration, I hand stamped a phrase I’d been muttering onto a key chain for myself and posted it on social media.

People starting asking to buy one. And thus, the business was born. The full story is here.

The original key chain on my dining room table.

I found studio space in Brooklyn (Greenpoint, and then DUMBO.) I made a lot, and I mean, A LOT of jewelry, and I sold it all over the country and then all over the world, including to service people overseas.

Ironically, my company’s high point also led to the difficult decision to wind down operations.

In 2017, I was one of the first to make “Nevertheless She Persisted” bracelets. (In case you don’t remember that episode of American political life, here’s a refresher.) They were a huge hit and I’m proud to say they raised over $600 for the Southern Poverty Law Center. You can see photos of them and the process of making them at the bottom of this page.

I was using Shopify at that time, and the app made a cash register ring sound every time a sale came through. I was used to this happening a few times a day B.B. (Before Bracelets), but A.B., the ca-ching was so constant that I had to mute the phone! This was at first extremely exciting.

And then it became alarming. I was a solo entrepreneur, handling everything from design to shopping. I was at a point where I either had to hire on some help, or start to outsource some of the manufacturing. There was a whole lot going on in my life that the made the whole thing more complicated, but the bottom line was I really didn’t see a way to do either of those things ethically or practically.

And I didn’t love making a zillion of the same pieces, over and over again. Just in terms of physical labor, it wasn’t easy. (When people romanticize manufacturing before machinery, I always remember how much I hurt at the end of the day.) As I swung a hammer over and over until late at night in my studio, I started to realize that I was laboring in a sweatshop — one that I had started, yes, but a sweatshop nonetheless.

Something had to change, and I considered different ways to pivot. The kind of work I did like to make — one-of-a-kind art jewelry, often using found materials — was something that was probably better in the realm of fine art rather than commercial jewelry. But my business structure required moving quantity. It just didn’t pencil out.

So I shuttered the business. I’ve had a lot of feelings about it, including feeling pretty turned off and burnt out on jewelry fora bit. (During the pandemic my ear piercings closed up!)

But in the fullness of time I’ve come to appreciate what I learned both creatively and entrepreneurially. So I’m happy to now share some examples of the work I did under the Alison Wonderland Jewelry umbrella: