At age 13, Heather B. Moore stumbled upon a steel stamp set from the late 1800s at a garage sale.
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What to Ask
Do I know enough?
Do you feel comfortable enough with business practices? If not, take a class. “If you don’t, you’ll have to learn by making mistakes,” says jewelry artist Heather B. Moore.
Have I defined my niche?
“You’ll have to tailor your work to the marketplace or create your own market,” says COSE Arts Network’s Matthew Charboneau.
Did I address the boring stuff?
Have you incorporated your business, created a marketing plan, secured health insurance and familiarized yourself with contracts, copyrights and taxes? “That’s the stuff artists don’t want to do,” says Cleveland Institute of Art director of career services Amy Goldman.
Do I have a role model?
“Go out and talk to someone who’s doing it,” Goldman says. “Ask them, ‘is this realistic?’ ”
Am I aggressive enough?
“You have to be constantly putting work in front of people’s faces,” Moore says.
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Because her father was Dan T. Moore, a local entrepreneur who’s launched numerous advanced manufacturing ventures over the past 40 years and currently has 12 companies in his portfolio, tooling was something of a family fascination.
But budding artist Heather tucked away that stamp set for years, through her teen years in Cleveland Heights and her studies at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
After graduation, she worked as a glassblower and metals artist in New York and launched an enamels and metals jewelry company in 1994.
Mixing business with family life was part of Moore’s upbringing — the family puzzled over management problems at the dinner table and cooked new plastics in the kitchen — so it seemed natural for her to set up her jewelry company at home when she returned to Cleveland in 1999. She moved into her grandmother’s early-1900s Cleveland Heights estate with her artist husband, Thomas Frontini, and had four children.
“My kids were young, and it was good for them to see what I do,” says Moore. “Everyone thinks [business] is an adult conversation, but it’s not.”
In the early 2000s, she pulled that old stamping set out again and began tinkering with stamping letters and images onto scrap gold. From there grew Moore’s eponymous jewelry line, introduced in 2003, that melds personalized stamping with precious metals and diamonds, sold under the tagline “Cherish Who You Are.”
“It’s about documenting your milestones,” she says. “You’re creating a story for generations.”
Moore’s business grew, and as orders rolled in, she hired new artists, technicians, operations and marketing folks, squeezing them into every available space from basement to attic. At its height last year, Moore had stuffed 47 employees — plus family and pets — into her nearly 5,000-square-foot house. “We were at full capacity,” she says. “I couldn’t hire anyone else.”
Last fall, she moved Heather B. Moore Inc. into a Midtown facility where her staff has swelled to 65. An average of 15 people touch every piece of jewelry during manufacture, and every piece is shipped within 10 days. She declined to share sales figures. “Let’s just say UPS loves us,” she says.
But Moore-designed necklaces are sold in more than 100 jewelry stores in the U.S. and abroad, including local retailers such as Yeager Jewelers in Westlake. They have even scored national press coverage and landed on the necks of celebrities such as Beyoncé and Paula Deen.
Talented artists don’t always make good entrepreneurs. And though she’s closely involved in the design process, she’s much more the CEO these days.
For her entrepreneurial success, Moore credits the management principles she learned as a kid at the dinner table and her natural gift for marketing.
“My dad always told me to think as big as you can,” says Moore. “Thinking small creates barriers to success.”
Plus: Advice for the artist-entrepreneur