Pictured is Madelene Bussart with some of her over the door Transom mosaic work.

By Shari Benyousky
Guest Columnist

NORTH WEBSTER – The rich, comforting scent of chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting hangs in the air, a contrast to the story of shattered bone and shattered dreams being recounted across the kitchen table.

Madelene Bussart of North Webster hands me rosehip and hot apple tea, her gaze steady and determined. She is describing the moment a specialist at Christ Advocate Medical Center in Chicago told her she would never walk again.

Not Yet!

It was February 2018. Madelene was heading on vacation when her life was violently rerouted by a texting driver. The horrific car wreck left her with compound fractures; bones were sticking out the wrong side of her boots.

“When the specialist told me that I would never walk again,” she recalls, a fire igniting in her eyes, “two things came to my mind. Number one – you don’t know me very well, and number two: not yet.”

That defiant “not yet” became the mantra for her grueling journey back. Closing her successful cosmetology and airbrushing business “Beyond Beauty” was a painful necessity. But Madelene, a woman who had built her life on making others feel beautiful, was about to discover a new way to create. She enlisted a physical therapy team from South Bend who believed in her audacious goal. They hoisted her on a pulley above a treadmill, suspending 90% of her weight. For seven to eight months, she couldn’t wear shoes, cycling through three different casts, a walker, crutches, and a scooter.

A tear wells in her eye as she remembers the breakthrough. “I was so emotional the very first time my toe touched the treadmill. I couldn’t stop crying because I refused to let words define my future.”

Birth Of An Artist

Madelene’s ‘Pelicans’ from North Webster.

As her body fought to heal, Madelene’s soul sought an outlet. Art became her physical therapy. What began as a therapeutic distraction soon blossomed into a profound new calling. She leads the way outside to her studio, a vibrant sanctuary stacked with paintings in progress, beads, glazes, glass, and inspirational signs. This is the new “Beyond Beauty.”

Her inspiration is deeply rooted in the natural world just beyond her door. Out in her chilly workshop (the heater just broke), she gestures to a piece featuring pelicans.

“You know we have pelicans on Webster Lake these days?” she says with a smile. This connection to nature is intuitive, perhaps inherited. “I have lots of ideas. They are constantly going around in my mind. I’m resourceful and determined. I can make things out of nothing. I get this from my mom.”

The Legacy

Madelene’s mother was a Hungarian refugee who survived World War II by scrapping metal for food, even digging through butcher’s trashcans for chicken feet to make broth. Regina later taught herself English, fed her future husband while working for the Americans, and eventually ran a European cake house, creating delicious baklava, European tortes, and life-like flowers from royal icing. From her, Madelene inherited an unbreakable resilience and a knack for finding beauty in the broken.

This artistic lineage is a tangible thread. To illustrate the point, Madelene pulls out a beautifully painted gourd from her Aunt Katerina, showing off the vibrant folk-art motifs that are a hallmark of their Hungarian heritage.

“This is the style I grew up with,” she says, tracing the patterns. It’s a direct visual link to the past, a piece of her family’s soul that now informs the colors and forms in her own work, connecting the cake house flowers of her mother to the pelicans and cardinals she paints today.

This is perhaps most evident in Madelene’s early foray into mosaics. “I can find beauty and purpose in things other people don’t see,” she explains, holding up a green bird mosaic aptly named “Shards of Serenity.” The piece is a testament to her philosophy: broken things can be reassembled into something whole and beautiful.

Cardinals And Birdy

This is also a metaphor for her own life, which faced another devastating blow when she lost both of her parents just seven months after her accident. In her grief, she found solace in a childhood nickname: Birdy.

“I was a skinny kid with a rat’s nest back here,” she laughs, gesturing to the back of her head. Now, she is drawn to depicting birds, especially cardinals, which she sees as signs from loved ones.

“I paint them when I think of my parents,” she shares softly.

Her work is evolving, driven by a deepening purpose. “The older I get, the more I want my pieces to make meaningful statements. I want them to be something that inspires someone.”

Madelene with one of her large wall hanging bowls.

This isn’t just a hobby; it’s a mission born from the understanding that her survival was itself a miracle. Doctors told her she should have died from a ruptured spleen, and they nearly amputated her left foot. Dr. Daniel Troy managed to reconstruct it using cadaver bones and hardware. Madelene takes this as a sign she was kept alive to “help other people.”

A Bridge Between Body And Soul

Now, Madelene passionately advocates for art therapy. “If you’re determined, get some pencil and paper or some clay and just create whatever comes to mind,” she urges. “Art is the bridge between my body and my soul. Creativity did not fix my lower left extremity, but it built my spirit one piece at a time and turned pain into purpose.”

Today, Maddie does pottery at her friend Kim’s studio, Backwater Girl Pottery. “Kim has had a lot of grace with me as I learned,” Madelene chuckles. Her work includes everything from little pieces to unique, wall-hanging bowls she describes as “large flat flowers, almost like lily pads,” and they are a testament to her restless innovation.

“My pieces aren’t masterpieces,” Madelene says with unflinching honesty. “But they speak of resilience. I channeled what I was going through into creativity. I’m not rich, but I feel rich.”

Surrounded by the calming waters of Webster Lake that draw people from everywhere, Madelene Bussart stands, a living testament to the power of “not yet.” She is an artist who gathers the shards of trauma, loss, and physical agony and, with resourceful hands and a determined heart, mosaics them into a life of profound purpose and beauty.

Do you know of an interesting place, restaurant, nonprofit, or person that you’d like to see featured in Diners and Dives or Banter? Send Shari Benyousky of SB Communications LLC an email at [email protected].