How long has Sara Dudzinsky been making jewelry? “Since I was old enough to use those giant plastic beads,” she says. Granted, it took the designer some twenty-odd years to develop her aesthetic. In high school, she discovered a propensity for metalwork, and after getting her BFA in metals and jewelry from Cleveland Institute of Art—in her hometown—she moved out to Portland, Oregon, with her boyfriend. “We actually grew up two blocks from each other,” she confesses.

For Sara, what makes jewelry-creation her thing is the hands-on intensity of it. “I wavered back and forth between clothes and jewelry for a long time. What brought me to jewelry was the process. I like to sew, but I love the fire,” she explains. She discovered crystals—her material of choice these days—on a thrifting trip when she was sourcing inspiration and other accessory-worthy trinkets. “Even though I might be making the same pair of

earrings 50 times over, every one is a little bit different. They all have their own qualities, shapes, and characteristics. It makes it more interesting for me,” Sara says.

Now that she has this rock thing going—creating surprisingly delicate (and charmingly small) pieces from natural stones—she is putting energy toward sourcing some really fantastic crystals directly. “I’ve been trying to find more mines, make more connections,” she explains. This, it seems, will be another way to keep things interesting.

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