- Meris Mosher
When The Pit, the graffiti wall on Lower Water and Morris streets, was recently demolished, a cultural history was destroyed too. Over the years, layers and layers of (technically “legal”) street art built up like icing on a cake, undocumented and often unnoticed. But Meris Mosher was watching. Since 2007, the NSCAD grad, who now runs Point of Departure Jewellery Design, was collecting pieces of the peeling, discarded paint, which she has incorporated into jewellery and now 16 limited-edition belt buckles, available at Utility Gallery. And while they’re for sale ($100 each), the artist mostly hopes that people will want to take a closer look at these wearable pieces of history.
- Belt buckle: copper, brass, silver, found objects, patina, paint
Now this is jewellery you wear with a swagger. Mosher, who is interested in “urban and industrial decaying, worn down by people’s use,” designed these rough-and-tumble buckles with a banged-up copper front plate; pocked, scratched and banged up to mimic the texture of the wall. Peek-a-boo window pockets reveal colourful pieces of paint, sandwiched between the copper and brass backing. “Who knows,” says Mosher, “there could be 30 people’s art crammed in there.
