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[attach]4778[/attach]It all started with a wedding.
When Kathy Poitras’ son Kyle got engaged, he asked her to create the invitations for the big day.
As Poitras, who has been an artist for over 20 years, looked at the end result — which showcased two hand-painted roses — she was inspired to make cards for others.
“I thought that would be great to just create different works of art that are on the water colour paper and look so delicate and beautiful and that just got the whole idea going in my mind,” she says.
A little over a year and a half later, Poitras Art Greeting Cards officially began as a family affair at the end of July. Poitras and her daughter Priscilla Ilasi make all the cards and dad Jack Poitras, who owns Poitras Art Studios, helps to sell their work near Don Mills Road and St. Dennis Drive.
“There’s nothing mass produced about it and that’s what makes it special,” Ilasi says, adding that they will also include personalized messages inside the cards if people want. “When you give it to somebody it’s saying that you cared enough about them that you didn’t just go and grab a random card.”
Although they share similar feminine themes, they work on their own cards separately from start to finish, partially because of their style differences. Ilasi points out that when she draws people it’s more to scale, whereas her mom is more abstract in her representations.
The pair say they put a lot of time and effort into their greeting cards, which all stem from their original artwork. After a card is printed based on that design, they embellish and repaint each one to make it unique and different.
“We almost get along too well,” says Ilasi. “As artists and as a mother and daughter we just get along endlessly and so it’s very, very easy to live surrounded by your art and live surrounded by the people you love.”
As a means of promoting their cards and how intricate the process is, they are now also offering parties, which they say are similar to Tupperware parties, but will revolve around their artwork instead.
Ilasi says that most of their customers to date have purchased their greeting cards as works of art.
“They actually don’t buy these as cards and give them away,” Ilasi says. “They actually buy them and frame them.”
Poitras says she hopes people will be just as thrilled as she would be to get one of their special cards in the mail.
“I want my art to make lots and lots of people happy so I see this as a vehicle,” Poitras says. “You want to have a positive influence on the world, like to me, that’s what art is, it’s like you’re having positive affects on the world, so if I can do it in this smaller sort of arena I’m happy about that.”