A mirror reflects one of many artworks that adorn their home.
Writer: Michael Morain
Photographer: Jami Milne
IN THE BEDROOM Agnieszka Pieta and Douglas “Dak” Kaye share in their Ankeny home, a little museum-style note hangs next to a big painting: “Please do not touch.” It’s a polite reminder, not for the occupants but for their many, many guests.
“Can you believe that?” Kaye likes to say. “Sometimes we have 20 people in our bedroom.”
By now, hundreds of people have toured the house the couple built in 2020 on Ankeny’s southwest corner, not far from Saylorville Lake. It’s a home, a private gallery and a hub for Pieta’s contemporary art club — what she calls, in a lovely French accent, the “Club d’Art Contemporain.”
Eye-catching artwork, mostly by Swiss artists, adorns nearly every wall in the living room, the kitchen, the laundry room — even the bathrooms. Downstairs, in a cleverly designed storage space, fence panels from Home Depot hang from sliding tracks on the ceiling to accommodate extra paintings when they’re not on display.
A digital projector beams videos onto a plain white wall for live Zoom chats with artists during events. The family’s foosball table converts into a regular table for hors d’oeuvres, next to a well-stocked bar.
In the four short years since Pieta moved to Iowa from Switzerland, she has hosted receptions for friends and neighbors, book clubs and groups from Ballet Des Moines, the Des Moines Art Center and a smattering of charitable nonprofits.
“I love exhibiting art and talking about art,” Pieta said, for its own sake but also as a way to get to know people and build connections. Art, she said, “c’ette une language universelle.”
Agnieszka Pieta enjoys showing guests her home gallery’s art collection, including paintings by Crystel Ceresa (above) and three ceramic cherries (below) from Selma Calheira’s Cores da Terra collection at Projects Contemporary Furniture.
PIETA WAS BORN IN POLAND and was 7 when her family moved to northern France. She studied graphic and industrial design at art school and earned another degree in marketing and communications.
She started her career in Grenoble, at the ski outfitter Rossignol, before moving to Switzerland. She and her first husband had a son, Marek, but soon parted ways.
While Marek was still young, Pieta returned to work as a graphic designer. She produced her own artwork on the side and started organizing pop-up art shows with her friends, first in a little wine bar in Sion, in the Alps, and then in Lausanne, on the north shore of Lake Geneva. Eventually, she opened her own gallery in an up-and-coming neighborhood and frequently hosted events — openings, artist talks and so on — with a growing network of artists and friends.
One of those friends was Kaye, who was posted in Lausanne for his job with Albaugh LLC, the Ankeny-based company that produces and sells crop-protection products. They hit it off and often traveled together to visit museums and galleries across Europe.
When Kaye returned to Ankeny to lead Albaugh’s North American division, he and Pieta got married and moved to their new home with Marek, who is now 16.
Pieta had planned to keep running her gallery in Lausanne, with an assistant, but the pandemic created more challenges than she had expected. So she closed it and refocused her energy here in Iowa, her new home.
Soon enough, she befriended Jeff Fleming, the former Des Moines Art Center director, and Blaire Massa with the ballet. She met many others, too, like the Israeli-French artist Yorame “Oyoram” Mevorach, who lives in Sherman Hill with his wife, a professor at Grinnell College.
“I’m very thankful to all the people who, when I came and said, ‘I like art,’ they really welcomed me into the community,” she said. “There are so many cultural organizations and charity organizations — so many people who donate, who support, who care about culture and each other.”
While she was talking at her kitchen table, a tiny bird popped out of a minimalist Swiss cuckoo clock to announce the time. It seemed just as happy to be here.
A minimalist cuckoo clock reminds Agnieszka Pieta and Dak Kaye of Switzerland, where they met. On the right: A mirror reflects one of many artworks that adorn their home.
A painting by Naomi Middelmann is seen from below, under a sleek ceiling light.
Guests mingle around a painting by Crystel Ceresa during a recent reception hosted by Agnieszka Pieta’s Club d’Art Contemporain.
A painting by Naomi Middelmann.
An oval sculpture by Manuel Müller in storage.
Agnieszka Pieta at her kitchen table beneath a painting by Thierry Feuz.
A curator’s gloves.
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