Born in Italy on March 12, 1870, Mercedes immigrated to Canada with her husband, Christianziano Fossaceca, in the late 19th century. Her husband worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway and became known locally as Jack Match, a nickname reportedly given to him by colleagues who struggled to pronounce his name. The name eventually evolved into Matz, which the couple adopted.
While historical records documented aspects of her husband’s life, very little information about Mercedes herself could be found. With support from local historian Cathy English and Revelstoke resident Rosemary Tracy, Arts Revelstoke began piecing together her story. Through archival research, including immigration records, birth and death certificates, and historical accounts, her remarkable contribution to the community came to light: Mercedes was a trained midwife who delivered almost every Italian baby in the Revelstoke district during the early 20th century.
Midwives played an essential role in rural communities at a time when access to hospitals and physicians was limited. Despite the importance of her work, she was rarely recognized by name in historical records, often appearing only as someone’s wife.
Miss Matz’s story reflects the countless women whose care, knowledge, and dedication helped build our community, yet whose contributions have been overlooked or lost from the historical record.
This mural came to life through a shared vision, a little hope, and the hard work of our community. For LUNA Festival 2026, Arts Revelstoke invited Italian artist Giuliana Conte to bring her large-scale cyanotype installation, Humanitas, to Revelstoke. When Giuliana accepted the invitation, she also asked if her partner, Tono Cruz, could join her and leave something lasting for our community.
Based in San Potito Sannitico, a small town in southern Italy, Giuliana and Tono brought a project that connects Italy and Canada through the stories of women who have made a meaningful difference in their communities. Humanitas takes its name from a Latin concept associated with culture, humanity, and our ability to connect with others.
The installation featured cyanotype portraits of ten women from the Rione Sanità neighbourhood of Naples, created through the Chiesa dei Cristallini project. Each woman was recognized for her commitment to making her neighbourhood a better place to live. In Revelstoke, this idea grew beyond the original installation, inspiring a new portrait that would connect the project’s themes to our own community.
Tono Cruz, an experienced muralist whose work spans the globe, is known for painting people and celebrating their stories. With the help of local community members and historians, Arts Revelstoke began searching for someone whose life and contributions deserved to be recognized on such a large scale. That search led us to Mercedes “Miss Matz” Catolino Matz.
After working for several years as a social educator, he started to combine education with art, using it as the main tool. From 2005, he started to dedicate himself just to art, mainly to urban art, without ever leaving the social aspect from which he comes from. In 2006 he founded along with Giuliana Conte the collective BLEE, which mainly develops works. He works alone for galleries and site-specific art, and with the collective Blee in participatory art projects. He can never stop turning, looking for paint lost corners of the world!