About Us & Our Business

Heritage Gallery is a family run business that started in 1993. The Zimmerman’s both grew up on farms, they love nature and all of God’s creation. Marian’s gift and love for designing and painting plus Lester’s determination to sell only outdoor plaques that truly hold up in rain and direct sunlight are the strength of the business.

In the early years we sold hand painted slate with different birds for a local lawn & garden store to sell. The most discouraging thing was when people commented to us that the slate tended to yellow and eventually the paint peeled off. We decided that if we cannot make something that will last outdoors we would quit. After some research we switched to an expensive industrial grade clear-coat with UV protection. It worked! Now they were beautiful and lasted outdoors for years. People liked them so well we started taking them to craft shows, and from there the demand grew and grew and more shop owners asked to buy wholesale. We have sold them all across the United States and Abroad.

In 2010 we purchased two UV Jet grand format printers and began to digitally print our original designs directly onto the slate which enabled us to put much more detail in an original piece of art and then digitally reproduce it.

As our business grew we began to have great difficulty obtaining enough quality slate to fill our orders. As someone has said “misery is the mother of invention” and in looking for a better and less stressful way to continue producing quality outdoor plaques we were introduced to a composite panel that featured double-sided painted aluminum panels bonded to a solid ¼”polyethylene core, making them ridged yet lightweight. It was a perfect fit for us.

Our observations over the years have been that most of our customers purchase and enjoy our plaques for these two primary reasons:

1. The beautiful artistic original designs.
2. The fact that they are a high quality made in the USA product that holds up outdoors in direct sunlight and rain for many years.