Sniffing out the best finds

Above: J.P. Moczulski for National PostArtist Casey McGlynn, with Olive, found the “tagged” mirror and bench.

Toronto, Canada
Artist Casey McGlynn's, beagle puppy Olive has been living up to its breads reputation and sniffing out some great salvage. Whilst on a walk he uncovered some unlikely furniture pieces, including an eight-foot-long wooden bench (an old hockey dressing-room reject scratched with names and jersey numbers) and an oddly shaped, uncracked mirror. Both now sit in Mr McGlynn's dining room, and are tagged with graffiti. "You can tell it's done by a good graffiti artist too, by the flow and quality of the line," says Mr. McGlynn, an oil-on-canvas man whose art has a decidedly graffiti-like feel.

This urban decay design trend seems to be taking off as Paul Mercer, co-owner of Smash, a store-gallery in the Junction that specializes in industrial and architectural salvage explains, "We don't bother restoring too many of our pieces - it's a waste of time, people want things that are banged up." As example of this is the forklift pallets from a now-closed motor factory, which Mr Mercer sells for $30. "Turn one upside down and you've got a cheap coffee table with a bit of a story attached to it. People put a premium on the story, even if it's mundane. It demonstrates that they've made an effort to find something local and not from a shipping container," said Mr mercer.


National Post