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THE ART OF SAYING YES TO SOMETHING NEW
WORDs Jenny Boulden images courtesy Angela Vennum Art
THROUGHOUT HER CAREER, clients have been
growing profits and demand for her talents. “Creating art is
showing Angela Vennum pictures and asking, “Can you do
what I’m here to do on this earth,” she says, finally at age forty-
this?” Signs, illustrations, murals, custom lettering, painted
four confident about her purpose. “It’s a total blessing that I’m
ornaments, or furniture — her answer has always been, “Yes.”
able to make a living at it.”
Whatever the style was, she could replicate it, no problem. Angela was born in Idaho but raised in Fort Smith since infancy. But now, Angela’s emerging from the pandemic with a different
“My father was a Bible teacher at Fort Smith Christian, where
perspective, fresh artistic yearnings, a new Angela Vennum Art
I attended from kindergarten to graduation,” she says. After
studio in Brunswick Place and a head full of exciting ideas. She’s
graduation Angela attended Westark (before it joined the
starting to turn customers down, not because she can’t give
University of Arkansas system and became UAFS) becoming
them what they want, but because her focus is now on creating
certified to teach elementary school. Much to her surprise,
art that flows directly from her imagination.
she discovered teaching young children was emphatically not her passion, or even work she enjoyed. “To be honest, I
Angela admits it’s improbable she’s had a more than twenty-
hated it, though I love kids,” she confesses. “It wasn’t where
year career as a working artist at all, much less one with steadily
my skills lie.”
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