"Most of us are not a Longfellow or a Hemingway
and space is limited on stone."
--Lew Herstead, monument designer and stone cutter since 1938
(2000, personal communication)
Explanation of the Contents
of this Page
I am certainly not an expert on monument design, but after touring the "newer"
sections of a number of cemeteries with my friend Lou Ann Herstead, who is a
monument designer, I became fascinated by the secular imagery--the cats, the
footballs, the color photographs--that people are choosing for their monuments.
In the Design and Manufacture of Monuments section
of this website, I address how technology makes the application of imagery easier
and cheaper, so here I am going to focus on the possible meanings behind the
secular images chosen.
| Rather than use my own words interspersed with quotes from others, I present excerpts from emails sent back and forth between Lou Ann, her father Lew Herstead, and me. Also, because of the large number of photographs used, I have separated each discussion into satellite pages. |
What do pictures do that words can't? A conversation (via email) with two experts