WATCH: Two statues were stolen from Denise Fenwick’s private backyard in early March. They were created by her now deceased husband who was a well-known artist on Hornby Island.
Denise Fenwick was standing at her kitchen window in early March when she realized a piece of art was missing from her back yard.
“I was packing up to get ready to go and was making coffee when I looked outside and that’s when I saw that the pedestal was empty,” said Fenwick.
Two statues were missing from her yard. One is a rust-coloured concrete female meditation figure that stood about 60 centimetres tall and weighed 60 pounds. A smaller bronze figure of a person kneeling was 45 centimetres tall is also missing. It weighs10 pounds.
“I was totally sick to my stomach,” added Fenwick. “I was kind of heart-broken really because I couldn’t exactly register what really happened.”
Beyond the theft and uneasiness, the invasion of privacy gave Denise, the statues have enormous sentimental value. They were created by her late husband Robin Campbell who was a renowned Hornby Island sculpture artist until his death in 2002 at 54-years-old.
“I got a lot of comfort from them because they are really meditative and peaceful but also just because they reminded me of Robin and for me, that was a really significant thing. To the people who took it, it probably doesn’t mean anything,” she said.
Her backyard on Quinn Avenue in Courtenay is fenced in and private. Someone would have had to have taken a long look over the fence to scope out the statues, and the big one was heavy.
“Sixty pounds of concrete, you can not pick that up very easily,” said Fenwick. “Certainly, you can not transport it very far without help, It really felt like a planned kind of thing and that’s very scary.”
She has reported the theft to police but she’s hoping whoever took the statues will return them to her property, no questions asked.
Anyone with information about the theft can quote file #3272 when calling the Comox Valley RCMP at (250) 338-1321.
EDITORS NOTE: The concrete statue was one of several identical statues created for a temporary installation at the Peace Arch border crossing at the time.
Dean Stoltz
