Montserrat Student Wins White House Ornament Competition

Beverly, MA - Montserrat College of Art student Kayla Whelan is the winner of the White House Historical Association’s annual White House Ornament competition.

Her design has been selected as the 2016 Herbert Hoover ornament and commemorates the 1929 Christmas Eve four-alarm fire of the West Wing during Hoover’s presidency. Nearly one million units of the ornament will be manufactured and sold by the historical association, and the ornament will grace the First Family’s Christmas Tree in December.

This was the first year the ornament design was opened to student competition to a select group of art colleges nationally, according to Lara Kline of the White House Historical Association. For 36 years the White House Historical Association has commissioned the annual Official White House Christmas Ornament design to honor U.S. presidents in sequential order or commemorate significant White House historical milestones. The sale of every White House ornament supports the Association’s mission to preserve, protect, and provide public access to White House history.

Whelan is a native of Pelham, NH who graduated from Pelham High School in 2012. She will be graduating from Montserrat College of Art in Beverly in May of 2016 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Graphic Design. While at Montserrat she interned with Simple Tuition in Boston, an online company which assists college-bound students. She has also worked for the college designing materials for the 2015 commencement.

“I first realized I wanted to be an artist when I was in kindergarten," said Whelan. "My teacher was complimenting my stick figures and suggested that I should be an artist when I grew up. The thought had never occurred to me, and the idea that I could draw for a living was the most amazing thing I had ever heard. I had two incredible art teachers in high school who encouraged me to continue when I began to doubt myself, and pushed me to succeed."

Whelan attended Montserrat’s pre-college program and fell in love with the school, applying and getting in a few months later.

"My junior year, I took a class called Design Factory with Design Department Chair John Colan," she said. "It was a small class that worked on projects for real clients. One was the ornament design contest for the WHHA. I put a lot of effort into the project and Professor Colan pushed me to participate and was infinitely helpful to me. I was thrilled to learn I had won this prestigious competition and can’t wait to see the ornament created.”

Montserrat College of Art President Steve Immerman said the college's community is ecstatic that another student has won a prestigious national award.

"We are so proud of Kayla Whelan for the hard work she has done to reach this level of professionalism," Immerman said. "To create a design that will live in on in our nation’s history for centuries to come not only launches Kayla’s professional career, but is further evidence of how Montserrat College of Art prepares students for careers in the creative industries. Kayla joins other Montserrat students who have won prestigious awards from the National Society of Illustrators, The Copley Society and many others. Montserrat is a small art college that makes a big impact."

Photo credits: Dina Rowan, Montserrat '16, and Mel Powsner, Montserrat '17