As a contemporary jewelry designer, Todd Moore (BA ’95) takes an iconoclastic approach — attempting to remove all limitations to his creativity.
This push beyond the ordinary first led Moore to jewelry making. He apprenticed in Bozeman, Mont. — somewhere he never considered until a dream pointed him to the state with the fitting motto “Oro y Plata,” or “Gold and Silver.”
While camping on the beach in Western Australia with his wife — then pregnant with their first child — Moore says he had both waking and sleeping dreams that encouraged him to move to Montana.
“Really no logic to it, just a gut feeling,” he says.
After the birth of their son the family moved to Bozeman. There, Moore discovered his passion for working with metals. Moore’s wife is from Western Australia, and their family returned there after Moore completed his apprenticeship in Montana.
He now he has a successful jewelry design company, Ulyquin Design, based out of Denmark, Western Australia.
Moore says his fascination with art led him to a variety of creative endeavors, including 20 years as an accomplished drummer and a degree in ceramics from the University of Denver.
When it comes to jewelry making, Moore was attracted by the creative possibilities metal offers. As opposed to traditional jewelry, which he says is “steeped in commodity,” contemporary jewelry is “all about the process used and the idea of the expression, not the actual final product.
“Certainly I work in silver, gold and platinum, but it is the various properties of those metals that excite me, not the price,” he says. “My process is all about forward-thinking jewelry, personal adornment and art.”
Turning that creativity in a viable business, however, was more challenging than making the jewelry, he says.
Paul Laesecke, a hospitality senior lecturer and director of DU’s Creativity and Entrepreneurship Living and Learning Community, says creative people often struggle with becoming successful entrepreneurs. The community pairs business and art students so they can complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Moore found entrepreneurial success through his niche in Western Australia.
“Innovation and growth are happening here,” he says. “Some of my peers are doing some magical things and it is a pleasure to be associated.”