2008 Award-Winning Memorials

Copyright © 2010 American Institute of Commemorative Art,
Leland B. Longstreth, AICA, Executive Director,
8015 Van Ness Way, Indianapolis IN 46240

ST. MARK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH CROSS (Public/Civic Memorials First Place Winner)

Jerry Lager, AICA
Arthur J. Lager Monument Company
Breese, Illinois

Jerry Lager designed and built this impressive and modern twenty foot Celtic cross for a gentleman who wanted to place it in memory of his late wife.

DAN BLACK (Individual Monument First Place Winner)

Scott Johnson, AICA
Mathilde Baldwin
Kallin-Johnson Monument Company
Fort Dodge, Iowa

Scott Johnson and Mathilde Baldwin combined their designing skills and created this monolith as a memorial that resembled a field stone. The twelve-inch thick slab was polished on the front face, sawed on the back and after sandblasting, pitching and flaming the stone, they recessed the face, leaving only the sun as a polished surface. Symbolically, the sun is viewed as either rising or setting sun.

HEAD (Companion Monument First Place Winner)

Terry Joy, AICA
Joy Monument Company
Louisville, Kentucky

Terry Joy combined natural contours and textures to draw attention to the smooth sided cross that appears to have been broken out of the stone.

Grand Prize Winner

LAURENT (Family Monument First Place Winner & Eugene H. Faehnle, FAICA Winner)

Bobby Schlitzberger, CM, AICA
Schlitzberger & Daughters Monument Company
Houston, Texas

The Laurent design was developed by Bobby Schlitzberger from a photograph presented by the Laurent family, which showed a piece of art by Barnett Newman, Sculptor. Newman’s piece is exhibited in the Menil Collection and dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. Although Newman made his piece from steel, Schlitzberger transformed the artist’s idea into a black granite obelisk standing eleven feet tall.

2008 Design Contest

The Institute's 2008 Design Contest featured entries competing in five categories. Family Monuments, Companion Monuments, Single Monuments, Single/Companion Markers and Public/Civic Memorials. AICA Designers submitted photographs of their completed work to be judged in each category.

Each category completed for the grand prize, the Eugene H. Faehnle, FAICA Trophy, as judges selected a first, second and third place winner in each of the five categories. The first place winner in each category became a finalist for the grand prize.  

Harold J. Schaller, FAICA Award

Harold J. Schaller, FAICA Award recognizes “outstanding achievement in conceptual design” and honors one of the Institute most treasured charter members and a man who served as its Executive Director for many years. Harold Schaller is most often referred to as “Mr. AICA” by members of the Institute. Harold Schaller was a great designer, an accomplished artist and a great teacher of memorial art. He died at the age of 90 on September 25, 2004.

2008 HAROLD J. SCHALLER, FAICA AWARD WINNER

FERGUSON
Kent Langerman
Gallee Memorial Studio
Buffalo, New York

This is Langerman’s second Schaller Award, having taken the prize in 2007. His winning design for this years’ competition features an adoring angel placed on a cylinder-shaped pedestal centered on a curved bench.

CASSIDY LEA TIERCE (Single/Companion First Place Winner)

Pierre R. Tourney, Sr., AICA
Clark Memorials
Birmingham, Alabama

Pierre Tourney designed the uniquely lettered marker for six year old Cassidy Lea Tierce, who lost her life to cancer. The bracelet Cassidy wore which said “Live Strong” became a design element on the memorial, along with her drawings, hand prints and portrait etching. And of course, the lettering cut on the marker is of her handwriting.