The old mantra “one person’s trash is another’s treasure” holds true for one Sidney resident who has been turning discarded glass into whimsical sculptures for over a decade.
Geraldine Bruckel has been collecting beach glass from Sidney’s beaches since 1998 and turning that glass into sculptures and mosaics in her home studio.
“I find a lot of the glass on beaches in Sidney but I also collected a lot over the years before I even started the sculptures,” explained Bruckel, who started creating after she retired.
“I worked for 20 years as a nurses’ assistant until I had an injury and couldn’t work any longer.
I knew I had to do something to keep myself busy and one day I was walking along the beach with my dog and started noticing all the beautiful sea glass.
Now I’m sculpting with it but I’ve also done mosaics and other types of art with them,” she said.
Bruckel said there’s no hard and fast rules for what she does but, rather, it’s something that comes to her naturally.
“There’s just a force inside of me to create and the ideas just come to me and I put them together,” she said of her artworks, which are usually created using sea glass, superglue and epoxy.
Bruckel, 74, also paints to keep herself busy.
“I create when the mood strikes and I make whatever comes to mind at that moment,” she said.
A sampling of Bruckel’s work is currently on display at the Mary Winspear Centre along with a book she penned about some of Sidney’s history titled Sidney B.C. — Early Days.
See Bruckel’s work at the Winspear until Monday, Feb. 3 at noon.