Dec
20
Mary and Luigi
Dec 2012
By Jack Krayenhoff
Just in case you didn't know: the Dragon's Den is a TV show where people can make a pitch for money to start up a business. The Dragons are a panel of business persons who, individually, decide whether or not the idea is worth investing in. If they decide the plan is viable, they invest in it, usually for a percentage of the business. But not many of the applicants are successful.
It was Mary and Luigi's luck that David Chilton, famed author of "The Wealthy Barber," recently became one of the Dragons. When the pair were selected to appear in the Den and made their pitch for $10,000, David Chilton was the only Dragon who saw a future in the proposition and invested the asked-for sum, against a 25% part of the business. Not only that, but he also called Patrick Carr, President of Hallmark Canada. Carr liked the product and undertook to sell it.
So what product, and who are Mary and Luigi?
Mary is a James Bay resident; her partner Luigi is a love-bird (a small parrot), and together they make greeting cards. Luigi provides the materials by shredding paper with his beak, and Mary glues them onto her cards in artistic patterns. The Beacon went to visit them in their Lord Simcoe apartment to see how they do it.
Mary is sitting in her living room, except you would not recognize it as such, for it is all greeting card business, and she calls it her studio. Your reporter is seated across a table from her, and right away Luigi flies up from his nest, which is a kitchen drawer, and joins us. As if he knows the purpose of my visit, he proceeds to give a demonstration of his craft: with his beak he cuts a scalloped perforation along the edge of a handy piece of paper, very neatly and exactly parallel to the edge, to a length of three inches or so, and then tucks it among his tail plumage, as if it were a hair extension. When he has enough, he flies back to his drawer, strips and all, and there stores them. It is his nesting instinct that makes him do it, but Mary collects the strips regularly to make her cards. Does that not upset or discourage Luigi? "No," says Mary. "He just keeps right on doing it."
But what would happen if Luigi should die? And if the sale of her cards really takes off, will Luigi be able to produce enough shreds? "Well," says Mary. "In the first place Luigi is only nine years old, and with excellent care for a bird in captivity, with proper nutrition, hygiene and so on, he could easily live to be twenty years, or even more."
But in addition Mary happened to trace Luigi's biological sister, via the pet store where he came from, and she was amazed to find that this sister shreds paper in precisely the same pattern as Luigi. Other love-birds have their own patterns, quite different, and not so neat. "I could tell a genuine Luigi (or his sister) without any problem", she says. "Nevertheless, if the need were to arise, I may have to learn to work with different birds making differently shaped strips."
What gave Mary the idea to make cards with Luigi's strips?
"One day I just got the idea. I took a piece of blank cardboard, folded it and glued some strips of different colours onto it. I thought it looked like a painting of Jackson Pollock, and I sent it to a friend as a get-well card. It was a big hit! So I went from there."
Mary McQueen's greeting card business is called HAND and BEAK, and you can get her cards at Hallmark Gold Crown stores, across Canada. One authentic, original strip by Luigi is glued on the inside.