The Historic Angel House
203 East Main
Main and Boulevard
"Old Oklahoma House a Showcase for Angel Artist."
Associated Press
EDMOND, Okla. - After spending a number of years housing an abstract company, an Edmond residence occupied by a family of Angels for 64 years is filled for the second time with angels of a different kind.
This Historic Edmond home
houses American Business Finance and is also home of the
C. Butler Pendley Collection.
Owner, Catherine Pendley has become nationally known for her etchings & paintings.
The house, known as the Angel House, is now the home of the C. Butler Pendley Collection. Owner Catherine Butler Pendley, who has been known for several years for her floral and bird etchings, has now become nationally know for her etchings and paintings of angels. Pendley has filled the house with many different kinds of handcrafted angels as well as her own art work.
Before buying the Angel House, Pendley worked our of her home. "As the kids grew up and left the home I took over their bedrooms. I had taken over five bedrooms, the dining room, and a three-car garage before I seriously started looking for a place. I wanted a studio and a shipping operation, but I didn't want to spend 14 hours a day in a warehouse."
Pendley said she was excited when she was told last year that the Angel House was for sale.
"I first saw it when we moved to Edmond in 1981. It caught my eye, it had the picket fence and I thought it nostalgic looking."
The Angel House was named for John and Daisy Anglea (pronounced angel) who bought the house in 1907 from the Patton family who had the house built in 1902.
"John was a baker here in town and Daisy was an artist." Pendley said. "She gave art lessons in the garden room. Their son Hill lived in the house until 1971. In the final years Hill had the house, it had really begun to deteriorate."
In 1971, the house was sold to Jim and Joyce Little who completely refurbished it. The Little's tore down a summer kitchen on the back and turned the an old bathroom into a kitchen. Pendley said she believes that it was one of the first bathrooms in Edmond.
"I like to think that they saved the house for me because they came in and stripped all the beautiful woodwork dawn to its natural state and did some extensive remodeling," Pendley said. Before Pendley bought the house it was owned from 1981 to 1995 by Oklahoma Abstract Co.
"It seemed like the perfect place, it was a perfect match for me. I think it is important to let people know that I didn't just arbitrarily name it the Angel House."
Pendley's Angels are sold in 500 galleries throughout the country.
She said she didn't intentionally start painting angels although the phrase "May a host of angels watch over you forever," had stuck in her mind well after a well wisher had said it to her daughter before she had left to working Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico. Shortly after that she began painting American Indian women into a Southwest series of art she was working on.
"They were sort of abstract. People think of Native American women having a rugged life so I wanted to show another side of the women that was soft and gentle. I wanted to show a kind of sisterhood. All of a sudden these women became vertical and people started saying 'Oh! you're doing angels now. I didn't think I was, but that's the wonderful thing about art. What the artist thinks they're doing is not always the perception of other people who recognize a different spirit within them. It was then that I saw my Native American women had partly become angels and I thought again about, "May a host of angels watch over you forever."
The success of these paintings prompted Pendley to do a series of angels that looked like an angel to everybody.
"I wanted to do a white on white piece and had been experimenting with my engraving. I had over etched and my line had gone too deep and so I wondered if I could do an angel like that."
When Pendley first began her Angel Art she usually worked by commission and left a place beneath the angel for any adage her customer might request. However she said most people liked the phrase "May a host of angels watch over you forever," which she now uses on most of her angel etching.
"My first angel was so popular that galleries called me and asked 'what angel are you going to come out with this year.' I hadn't really thought about doing a series, but now come out with a new one every year."
Pendley had about 50 stores that carried her angels before they became popular. She said many stores that never carried angels before are carrying them.
"I think that people are becoming more spiritual, and angels are comforting," she said.
