Gesina has been sculpting for as far back as she can remember, but when she discovered the expressive possibilities of wool, she knew she had found her perfect medium. Wool is natural, organic, abundant and renewable. The technique employed is needle-felting, which can be relaxing, and even hypnotic. When in the flow, a figure will simply begin to emerge from the handful of loose wool she’s started with, until finally she tilts her head to look at it, and say, “Oh that’s who you are!”

Most recently she has been sculpting life-size Canadian figures: Sir John A MacDonald, whiskey glass in one hand, telegram from the Canadian Pacific Railway in the other; Emily Carr holding her palette, her stern expression softened somewhat by the presence of monkey Woo on her shoulder; Tom Thomson with paddle and sketches in birch bark canoe – actually, half a canoe – truncated even as Tom’s life was truncated, when he died in Canoe Lake. Because her sculpture is felted wool, it has a tensile quality and warmth, which makes the sculpture seem – almost – alive. 

Art Gallery member Roy Mitchell interviewed Gesina by phone. Click here to hear Gesina talk about her needle-felting work, her AGB exhibition and her other artistic interests.