About

About Deb Reutter Jewelry

At Deb Reutter Jewelry we know that you want the jewelry you wear to feel meaningful and represent part of your own unique story.

While mass-produced jewelry offers trend and style, my patrons seek a deeper connection with the jewelry they wear. They enjoy the experience of finding connection with a particular piece and the opportunity it affords to express a part of their personal style. I believe that everyone deserves to wear jewelry that feels less like a simple adornment and more like an extension of their true self.

Through my process, I’ve come to appreciate the tiny precision-cut Japanese glass beads I use to create my bracelets and earrings are more than just beads. They represent the promise of order in a chaotic world, and the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Recognizing the significance of each individual bead as part of a whole has been therapeutic and deeply satisfying part of my story. And I love to see patrons wear my pieces to symbolize parts of their own stories.

Every piece I create carries the same promise:

  1. Inspired by life: Every piece is inspired by a unique story, and that inspiration channeled to each piece during its creation.
  2. Original patterns: Each one-of-a-kind or limited-edition piece is handmade from precision-cut Japanese glass beads using a pattern I designed especially for its creation.
  3. Complementary resizing: I'll make sure your piece fits exactly how you want it to, as if it was created especially for you (because it was).

Shop the collection online, or, if you’re in the Twin Cities, I invite you to visit me at an upcoming event to feel and try-on different pieces.

As renowned jewelry designer Jennie Kwon says, "Jewelry has the power to be the one little thing that makes you feel unique." I design my jewelry in hopes it will be the ‘one little thing’ that makes you feel confident in your own unique style.

 

Artists Statement

I am not a professionally trained artist; there is no fine arts degree in my personal history. But what I do have is more than enough:  I am creative and tenacious. 

Though I have been a long-time resident of the Twin Cities -- a vibrantly creative community in its own right -- I did not learn to appreciate my own creativity until I was in my 50’s. I hope my personal story will inspire others to explore their own creativity and passion.

Cultivating community with my work is very important to me. I am a teacher by training so I love sharing what I know with others. A few years ago, I started a bead club with friends and am happiest when I can share my craft with others while also learning from them. Making custom beaded pieces allows me to invite clients to my bead studio, peruse my extensive collection and variety of beads and stones, chains, clasps, metals, collaborate on color ideas and patterns, creating one-of-a-kind jewelry that is personalized for the wearer.

I never considered myself creative. I like order. I need my spaces to be orderly and neat, and I thought this certainly meant I was so left-brained that I was not creative. But I AM creative. With dogged persistence I have taught myself complicated beading and jewelry making techniques as well as sought out professionals to guide and teach me. I have learned how to metalsmith my own jewelry components, design and metalsmith rings with semiprecious stones, how to connect delicate beaded weaving to leather and other mediums, and basic lapidary. When I am learning and making jewelry, I connect with a joyous, deeply satisfying part of myself. My curiosity, passion, and need to learn expand as I continue to grow as a maker.  

Through that journey of learning and making, I am finding my voice and honoring my unique process. Now, I use beads to create jewelry that is “orderly”. The Japanese glass beads I use click into place perfectly which, of course, I love. The designs can be abstract or precise, whatever I am feeling. Patterns of randomness or chaos can emerge within the order of my beads.  I love and need that.