Cda Artist Coaxes Sentiment From Stone

Tony Ball’s art dots the landscape nearly as far as he can see from his Coeur d’Alene workshop.

His granite creations attract hundreds of viewers. Some pause and study his work impassively. Others weep and stoop to run their fingers over his intricate designs.

Tony’s pride is the grave marker that turns heads, grabs eyes and stops people dead in their tracks - figuratively speaking.

“We want people to stop and say, ‘That’s a nice-looking monument,”’ he says, looking down at 400 pounds of polished black granite ready for installation.

Tony didn’t plan a career in headstones. His father, Tom, bought Coeur d’Alene Monument in 1986. He was an engineer, carpenter, jack of all trades. Monuments were a new endeavor, and a convenient job for Tony after high school graduation in 1990.

But it quickly grew into more.

“Everyone has his own story,” he says, slipping into an animated memory exchange with co-worker John Smith. Remember the headstone with the boat on it for the mailman? Oh yeah, his route was near the lake for years.

Such personal touches delight Tony and awaken his creativity. For sportsmen, he sandblasts fly fishermen and hunters onto granite and adds craggy mountains, towering pines and fat clouds.

Clayton Henley’s family wanted a picture of the Henley Aerodrome founder in cap and goggles in an open-cockpit plane. Tony worked from an old black and white photograph.

One of Tony’s favorites is former Kootenai County Assessor Tom Moore’s rose-colored headstone. Several of its gently waved sides are polished. In a heart-shaped portrait in the center, Tom, who died in 1996, and his living wife, Blanche, smile together forever.

“I like massive, a presence of its own, a pleasing shape,” Tony says.

Whatever customers want, Tony will try - with a few exceptions. One man wanted a bony hand reaching from the grave toward Heaven on the headstone.

Tony explained the gruesome effect and suggested instead a copy of Michelangelo’s God in the clouds with his arm extended to Adam. He added a Biblical crowd around a faceless death figure. The headstone’s pull on passing eyes is magnetic.

Grave markers start at $350, but price seems insignificant to people who want their dearly departed remembered for generations. The Balls encourage customers to choose monuments rationally, after their initial grief has ebbed a bit.

Still, orders come in for elaborate $100,000 grave markers with bronze sculptures. And customers change their minds. Tony has worked on one touching monument for months, scrapping one finished version and recently unveiling his second attempt.

Four small, grooved handprints line the bottom of the black stone and tell the whole story. Constance Laree Anderson was only 42 when she died in 1995, but she was a beloved grandmother.

Simple, but hard to ignore. It’s Tony’s trademark.

College bound

If you’ve ever studied a guide book of the nation’s colleges and universities, you know there are far too many and they all cost too much. But don’t despair. The money’s out there. Believe me, I have a daughter in college. You just have to find it.

Go to “Making the Right Moves,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Lake City High’s auditorium. Experts there will talk about financial aid, college athletics, scholarships and more. Ask college students how their choices worked out and where they found money. It didn’t all come from mom and dad’s checkbook.

The workshop is free, open to the public and well worth missing a night of sitcoms. Call 769-0769 for details.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: What’s your favorite college memory, and can you share it with your kids? Go public for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.