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Coming home

Art career brings Ayala back to Blanden Memorial Art Museum

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Angela Ayala, the new art educator and assistant director of the Blanden Memorial Art Museum, works in the museum's classroom. Here she uses a painting completed by another artist as a prop to demonstrate paintbrush technique.

When Angela Ayala was growing up, she did a lot of drawing.

“Art has been my passion since I was little,” Ayala said recently. “It has just been a growing passion that has never relented.”

Ayala has been able to turn that passion into a career which has brought her back home to Fort Dodge and the Blanden Memorial Art Museum, where she began working as the museum educator and assistant director on Aug. 30.

She was very familiar with the museum from previous visits and from completing two internships there during her college years.

“I loved the Blanden. I loved the collection. I loved Fort Dodge,” she said.

Being a fulltime staff member has given her an even greater appreciation for the museum.

“This is a gem,” she said. “I had no idea how stunning the collection is when I was in school.”

Ayala is a native of Fort Dodge who grew up in Otho. She graduated from Fort Dodge Senior High School. She then earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Grandview University in Des Moines. She also has an art therapy certification.

She has worked in various art jobs in Iowa. Before joining the staff of the Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Ayala worked for Momentum, a program in Des Moines that helps disabled people create art.

“Seeing what they do to create is amazing to me,” she said of the Momentum participants.

Ayala said the participants in that program demonstrate that “no matter what hardship you have in life, the art is always there for you.”

Her personal favorite art form to work in is mixed media painting. That art form includes at least two different types of material. For example, she said she may get an idea that involves feathers. She will start by putting color down on a canvas, and then keep working away with the paint and the feathers.

She said her favorite artist is Andy Warhol. She said she admires him for what she called his ability to constantly reinvent himself.

At the Blanden, she is responsible for teaching the art education classes and creating the educational materials. She is also responsible for training the docents, who are the museum’s tour guides.

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