Artist: Kathryn Belzer
Size: Life size
Medium: Sculpture in cloth over copper armature
Photo: Dan Abriel

From the 17th to the 18th Century, in Europe, England, and England’s North American colonies, the town crier was a popular communicator. Even today, the town crier has a special place near the shores of Halifax Harbour. Our CIBC Town Crier is dressed in mid-18th century fashion, with his breeches, sleeved waistcoat, and cloak.

His tricorn hat is worn with the point over the left eye to act as a rain gutter and direct runoff away from the centre front. The hat’s green ribbon rosette indicates affiliation with an Irish charity and political neutrality. His reproduction shoe buckles are the standard for that period, when identical shoes were rotated from left to right foot daily. This made the shoes last longer, but required that the buckles be removed and replaced with each rotation, because they are either right or left, not interchangeable.

In keeping with space planner Linda O’Hara’s vision and architect John Crace’s original drawings, I built the Town Crier with a round, soft, cartoon-character quality to contribute to the CIBC Call Centre’s friendly mood. Historian Robert Redden and artisans Jackie Allen, Barb MacLean, Kevin MacNeil, Rod McNeil, and Marnie Mitchell helped me build this piece.

I hope the Town Crier suggests the concept of communication in a playful, warm, and good-natured way that inspires the same qualities in the living characters who share their environment with him.