“My business is adding personality to people’s homes. When you bring a smile to someone’s face, before they even get to the table. That’s what it’s all about. ” – Jacqueline Poirier
Jacqueline Poirier earned a BFA in drawing and painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2004, despite her assertion that she was born with paint in her hands. She has been using porcelain and ceramics to paint since 2012 in order to bring her creativity to reality. Her hand-painted charger plates are on display throughout TOCA, the hotel’s main restaurant, where she is currently the Resident Artist at The Ritz Carlton in Toronto. In the spring of 2014, Instagram recognised her account @thecrazyplatelady with its 170+ million followers and showcased her brand to thousands of people around the world.
Jacqueline’s successful and expanding business, where she specialises in painting and selling customised artwork to customers from around the world, was made possible thanks to this advertisement. She has collaborated with the creative teams of many brilliant corporate clients, including Facebook, Molson Canadian, Samsung, Celebrity Cruises, Hewlett-Packard, and the Toronto International Film Festival, in addition to closely working with individual buyers to produce exclusive and one-of-a-kind works of art. Her art has appeared in various prestigious journals in North America, the UK, Australia, Africa, and Malaysia, in addition to being shown on national television. These include Flamingo -Air Namibia’s In-Flight Magazine, Virtuoso Life Magazine, That’s Life Magazine Australia, The Globe & Mail, The National Post, The Toronto Star, Toronto Life, Food Network Magazine, FoxTV, Elle Magazine, Flare Magazine, WedLuxe Magazine, Disney Malaysia Magazine, Flamingo -Air Namibia’s In-Flight Magazine, Virtuoso Life Magazine, CTV, and Canada AM. In conjunction with Tourism Toronto, she has also held plate painting classes in Boston, New York City, Washington, DC, Mexico, and London.
She has a website called the Crazy Plate Lady, where she posts demonstrations of her artistic creations and also customises goods for her customers. Poirier, a server at TOCA, the high-end hotel’s main restaurant, has been the Ritz-artist Carlton’s in residence. But she paints on bone china rather than canvas. Her artwork is shown every night on the restaurant tables in between knives and spoons, rather than hanging on gallery walls. Her one-of-a-kind, hand-painted charger plates are adorned with vibrant characters, images, and scenery that range from humorous pigs and raccoons to iconic Toronto city signs, graphic native Canadian-inspired animals, peaceful birch forests, and even black and white silhouettes of the Beatles. She has created a large quantity of work in a variety of genres, including those including animals, influential personalities, food and drink, installations, landscapes, corporate, press, studio, canvas, and murals. The plates in the well-appointed hotel, which has 400-thread count sheets and opulent surrounds, have quickly become a hot topic of conversation. Even famous people and other prominent customers, such as Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed, have expressed interest in them.
Top executives have also taken notice of the plates, which welcome guests as they are seated and are removed before dinner is served. For a private event, Poirier was hired by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to paint limited-edition charger plates with treble clefs, and a well-known beverage firm requested champagne glasses. More than 50 of Poirier’s plates, each autographed by the artist and occasionally the entire TOCA crew, have been purchased off the table by other hotel guests and diners for roughly $200 each. Even more guests have ordered custom plates, some of which are decorated with their own personal aircraft, a favourite car, cottages, or even pets. Poirier offers her designs on her website, jacquelinepoirier.com, and is happy to adapt her creations to clients’ needs.
