Jewelry and Geometry: Natalia Krasnodebska

It’s easy to miss the small, subterranean basement studio in which the young jewelry designer Natalia Krasnodebska works, oftentimes late into the night. Above a camera repair shop on N. 7th Street and Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, the only discernable quality about the quiet corner is a small green fluorescent light, flashing in the darkness. Once you make your way down the narrow, crumbling stairs, through the door and into the studio and over to the back corner, where the unassuming and pixie-like Krasnodebska has set up shop, it’s anything but ordinary or mundane. From the workshop of a jewelry designer/entrepreneur with a background in science and a passion for travel, Krasnodebska’s work is anything but boring, and just this week she released two brand new lines—a collection of ten contemporary rings for Gallery Loupe in New Jersey, and 12 unisex steel pennants, to be sold at the New York Design Room in Williamsburg.

Krasnodebska works primarily with raw steel, sculpting and casting it into clean geometric shapes that often invoke, and are inspired by, natural forms—a testament to her undergraduate degree in neuroscience, perhaps—in addition to architecture, and the city that surrounds her.

“I’m inspired by negative space, and exploring how to trap it,” Krasnodebska said. “With the rings, I’m interested in how space shifts with movement, and the process of framing, and how space changes when it’s framed in different ways.”

Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Krasnodebska moved to New York in August of 2008 in search of a niche market: She began her career in jewelry design crafting high-end steel cuff links. Unfortunately, just one month after her move across the world, the economy collapsed, and with it her business venture.

“I moved to New York to make cuff links,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh! Investment banker-types are going to love these!’ But I remember I was walking around, doing the tourist thing in September of last year when I heard that Lehman Brothers shut down. And it was the end of that idea.”

When her initial business model went down the tubes, Krasnodebska decided to make the best of it, and continued practicing her craft, albeit a more practical and affordable version for the financially-strapped masses, which includes a line of acrylic pieces and small steel cast pennants.

“I think I came out of it a lot stronger as an artist,” Krasnodebska said. “I’m just going to take advantage of the amazing opportunities here in New York. There is so much great art here! I moved across the world for this!”

Though working as a successful artist in Brooklyn, Krasnodebska happened upon jewelry design almost by accident: She has an undergraduate degree in business and neuroscience, and decided to start making jewelry on a whim, after meeting two jewelry designers at a flea market and taking inspiration from their work. At the time, Krasnodebska was working for recruitment agency, and managed to talk her way into a master’s program—and the rest is history.