Building a Blooming Business
Chris Messina has the mind of a businessperson. She has a degree from Boston College and holds a full-time position with an engineering firm, managing product marketing and four teams with nine different applications.
Simultaneously, she has the soul of an artist. Her grandparents were educators who had summers to travel with both Chris and their watercolors. Her grandmother wore a sterling silver Viking cuff for more than 40 years and then bequeathed it to Chris who wears it every single day.
That cuff inspired Chris’ desire to learn silversmithing. Not finding an instructor nearby, Chris reached out to the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, inquiring about lessons. It was there she found Sussy-Rose Shields who offered her an introductory course.
Chris drove an hour each way and did everything so perfectly that she was offered studio space and an additional two months to begin making her own pieces. She followed that with instruction from master silversmith, Nicole Ringgold, in Washington state. And to this day, Chris seeks out local silver and goldsmiths to see their work, studios, and tools.
When Chris felt her work was ready to market, her business sense told her the most efficient business model was to sell wholesale. Once again, she looked for a way to learn the basics of the wholesale trade quickly and found the webinar “How to Wholesale,” which I was teaching in conjunction with Sunshine Artist. That four-part webinar taught her the basics of product development, pricing, and selling to retailers looking for handmade American products.
Chris named her brand of sterling botanical jewelry Silver Garden Designs. She exhibited at her first trade show, American Handcrafted, just four years ago. One thing to note about Chris’ exhibition time — she talks to everyone, particularly the other artists. Chris says she has learned so much that way about both making and selling, and she has made good friends along the way.
Since that first show, Chris continues to apply her business skills to every aspect of Silver Garden Designs. She is still at her regular job from 5:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and then goes to her studio to fill jewelry orders and work on new ideas. She transfers her vast product marketing experience to build a beautiful garden out of her work and sales materials.
Her marketing reflects the natural world encompassed in her jewelry. She uses the color green a lot — in her catalog, mailings, and exhibits. Her product photography is flawless, and Chris says she “pesters” her customers just enough to remind them to order more of her jewelry.
Her jewelry line continues to grow. On her website, silvergardendesigns.com, you can order by jewelry type, such as necklace or bracelet, by season, or by stone. Every piece is hand-cut and fabricated in sterling silver, and it exactly mirrors the lines, symmetry, and dimensions of nature. Chris does not hesitate to try new opportunities and then to carefully evaluate the outcome.
She joined the Museum Store Association, and her work is now in many prestigious museum shops, like the Cummer Museum in Florida, where she created several pieces. One is the resurrection fern, which is special to the museum. When the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, mounted an exhibition of Katsushika Hokusai’s work, Chris created two special collections.
There is no limit to Silver Garden Designs because of Chris’ entrepreneurial drive. She looks forward to developing new product lines for both the home and the garden and silversmithing well into her eventual retirement. And by retirement, Chris means having just one full-time creative career!
Diane Sulg
Diane Sulg is executive director of CRAFT and founder and co-chair of American Craft Week (ACW). She is a handmade advocate who provides valuable information in her one-day seminars titled “All About Wholesale” at wholesale shows throughout the United States. Diane is the former owner of Maddi’s Gallery, in Charlotte and Huntersville, North Carolina.