Reconciling relationship: Local artist’s sculpture helps reignite decades-old friendship

BY ZENITH WOLFE

Alocal gallery and the discarded remains of an old home helped a nurse and an Ottawa-based artist reignite their old friendship.

Maggie Wesley has a reputation as an artist in the capital: over the last 30 years, she’s sold art to Ottawa’s and Nepean’s permanent collections, and participated in exhibitions hosted by Atrium Gallery, Elmwood Art Fair, and the City of Ottawa. Though she only started pursuing art fulltime after she retired from patient care in 2015, she’s been creating for as long as she can remember.

“You don’t have a choice,” Wesley said. “You have to do it – it’s a part of your nature.”

Most recently, she contributed to the Prismatic exhibition hosted by Kanata Civic Art Gallery, an organization that pulls together local talent for monthly shows in Ottawa. Four of Wesley’s sculptural works were on display at John Mlacak Centre from March 22 to April 30.

She said she likes working in three dimensions because it draws people in –traditional galleries tend not to display as much sculptural art, so it stands out, she added. Wesley also incorporated reclaimed items and materials into the five works, saying that she enjoys giving a “second life” to old objects.

“It’s very important to me to take items that people have discarded and recycle them into something that’s considered beautiful,” she said. “I love creating something from nothing.”

One of her works, “Time Travelled,” is made of charred wood, old metal beams, and half of a withered clock face. She said these materials emphasize the theme of time.

“That piece of wood, I have carried around for about 15 years. Time passed through all of the wood – all of the worm holes and the life that had been involved in it – and once the thought of time got in my head, I got a clock face from my collection and cut it in half,” Wesley said.

This theme drew the attention of a particular gallery attendee: Wesley’s old friend Doreen De Witt.

Wesley and De Witt, who lives near Carlingwood, originally met in the mid1990s while working at The Royal Ottawa Hospital. They were both in the psychiatric emergency department, and they bonded almost immediately – Wesley said connecting with coworkers is crucial when dealing with intensely emotional patients.

“You have to cover each other’s backs,” she said. “You have to totally trust that person and rely on each other for safety.”

They moved to an acute care hospital together when The Royal closed its emergency department in 2000. Years later, however, Wesley transferred to an outpatient care day shift, and De Witt took a crisis hotline night shift. Their schedules never aligned, and although they kept in touch over email, they eventually drifted apart.

De Witt said she spent a few minutes looking at the work during a vernissage on April 1, reflecting on how much had changed in 20 years. She thought of the trip to Peru’s Inca Trail she had booked a few days prior, and the friends who told her it was about time she travelled. She remembered her chance encounter with Wesley at a mutual colleague’s retirement party in summer 2022, and the fun they had reconnecting.

Then she started crying.

“I’m not really a teary person so it was kind of embarrassing to be honest,” De Witt said with a laugh. “I can see pretty art and say, ‘My goodness, these people are talented.’ But I don’t usually have that visceral feeling.”

She bought the sculpture on the spot. It took her breath away, she said, and it was a sign of good things to come. Wesley said this made her feel more connected to her friend, and she started crying before they embraced each other.

That was when De Witt gave the work a closer look; she recognized one of the materials. While renovating her home at the corner of Preston and Elm St. near Little Italy in 1992, De Witt replaced her lath and plaster walls with drywall, intending to throw out the wall’s old metal support beams. Wesley asked to keep the metal so she could repurpose it into her art. The homeowner agreed.

Thirty years later, De Witt bought the beams back, which Wesley said overwhelmed them visually, emotionally, and intellectually.

“Both of us could not believe it,” she said. “When you’re inundated with a stimulus it creates a sort of euphoria, and that’s what occurred.”

They traded their new email addresses to stay in touch before leaving the gallery. Wesley is not sure where their relationship is headed, but she said they were both optimistic about their renewed connection.

“We certainly haven’t set up a datewhen you get old, life moves at a different rate,” she said. “(But) we’re both amenable to continuing the relationship and seeing each other again.”

Opposite page: This sculpture was created with old metal beams that Wesley took from her friend's Little Italy home 30 years prior. Left: Doreen De Witt (left) purchased the sculpture unknowingly aware it was made from the remnants of her former home. She was in tears when the connection was made.