2005 Design Contest

The Institute's 2005 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. From the five finalists, the winning design, a Civic/Public Memorial design by James Smith, AICA of Campbell Monument Co. of Bellville, Ontariao, Canada was judged the grand prize winner and was awarded the Faehnle Trophy. 

Gand Prize Winner

Harborfront Park of the Incorporated Village of Port Jefferson (Public/Civic Memorial) – Designer and Sculpted by James Smith, AICA, Campbell Monument Company, Belleville, Ontario, Canada

The citizens of the historic Village of Port Jefferson, Long Island reclaimed their harbor lands from its recent incarnation as an oil storage facility. The plans included restoring the old Bayles shipyard building as a cultural center and building a waterfront promenade highlighted by a public sculpture. The sculpture is the central feature of Port Jefferson’s new Harborfront Park redevelopment project and is designed to be a landmark tribute to the Town’s rich shipbuilding history. In response to the Villages given theme of shipyard heritage, James Smith, AICA designed and built a life-size sculpture of four shipyard workers carrying in procession, the frame of a 20-foot vessel, paying striking tribute to the town’s history of shipbuilding while recognizing the importance of the talented and hard working shipyard workers once central to the Port Jefferson community

1st Place Finalists by Category

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1st Place 2005 - Public/Civic Memorial

1st Place 2005 - Individual Memorial

1st Place 2005 - Companion Monument Category

1st Place 2005 - Family Monument Category

1st Place 2005 - Individual/Companion Marker Category

2nd and 3rd Place Finalists

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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.

Sara Joy Norris Memorial Tribute
Designed by Charles Hunt, Jr., AICA
of Hunt Memorials, Nashville, Tennessee.

Sara Norris was a stay at home mom of two young children. She loved to grow roses in her garden. Often she and her daughters would have picnics there and watch the butterflies move around the flowers. She always told the girls that the butterflies were symbols of good fortune and brought peace and harmony to those that watched them.

Sara’s husband, Jack, asked Hunt to develop some concepts that would be a tribute to his wife’s life. This design features a contemporary butterfly sculpture. Hunt felt that this would hold to the memories of Sara and her passion for the gardens. The hole represents the future and what it will bring for the children.

Hunt used a rough jagged texture and surfaces to symbolize a life tragically cut short. He felt a simple broken rose was a dual representation of Sara’s love of flowers and the losing battle to cancer. The verse, Warm Southern wind blow softly here, is one of Hunt’s favorites, and was written for an epitaph by Mark Twain for his daughter.

Copyright © 2006 American Institute of Commemorative Art,
Leland B. Longstreth, AICA, Executive Director,
11003 Fellswood Ct., Louisville, KY 40243