Filmmaker Steven C. Barber has spent much of his career telling stories through a camera. In recent years, however, his work has taken on a considerably heavier form: bronze monuments honoring astronauts, presidents and figures in American history.
Barber, the director and producer behind Vanilla Fire Productions, traces that chapter of his career to the Apollo program.
In 2019, as the United States marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Barber helped bring a monument honoring astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
The monument, created by sculptors George and Mark Lundeen, became the beginning of what Barber describes as a new calling.
“No one had ever built a monument commemorating Apollo 11,” Barber said in a previous interview about the project. “However, I was able to get it done.”
Barber subsequently turned his attention to Apollo 13 and helped organize a monument honoring astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert at Space Center Houston.
The bronze installation depicts the three astronauts following their return to Earth after the famously troubled 1970 mission. Lovell and Haise attended the monument’s dedication in April 2021.
The project was presented to Space Center Houston by Barber and funded by the Grainger Foundation, while the statues were created by Colorado sculptors George and Mark Lundeen with Joey Bainer.
Honoring Sally Ride
After working on monuments centered on the Apollo era, Barber began looking at another part of America’s space history.
He noticed something he believed was missing from the country’s landscape of public monuments: greater representation of women who helped shape the American space program.
That led Barber to champion a monument honoring Sally Ride, who became the first American woman in space aboard Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983.
The first monument was unveiled at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, New York, in June 2022. Barber originated the idea and organized the effort to create and place the statue.
A second version was unveiled at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, on July 4, 2023.
Ride’s family attended the California ceremony, including her mother and sister. The monument depicts Ride stepping forward while holding a model of the Space Shuttle.
For Barber, the projects represented an opportunity to expand the historical figures represented through public sculpture.
“My life’s mission is to do all of the Apollo monuments,” Barber said in a 2023 interview with the Palisadian-Post, while also discussing his desire to recognize additional figures in science and space exploration.
A Presidential Monument
Barber’s monument work eventually expanded beyond the space program.
Following the July 2024 assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, Barber became involved in developing a bronze monument depicting Trump with a raised fist.
Businessman Anthony Constantino provided $300,000 for the project, according to published accounts. Sculptors George Lundeen, Mark Lundeen and Joey Bainer created the work.
The monument was unveiled in front of Trump at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 12, 2025. CBS Miami also reported on Barber’s presentation of the statue at the club.
The project marked Barber’s entrance into the politically charged world of presidential monuments, but he describes his broader work in terms of preserving figures and moments he considers important to American history.
Bringing Thomas Jefferson to the White House
Another Barber project ultimately reached one of the country’s most recognizable locations: the White House Rose Garden.
Ahead of America’s 250th anniversary in 2026, Barber worked with sculptor George Lundeen to facilitate the placement of a bronze Thomas Jefferson statue at the White House.
The life-size sculpture depicts Jefferson seated and working on the Declaration of Independence.
According to Associated Press reporting, Lundeen had created the sculpture decades earlier and wanted it displayed at the White House for the nation’s 250th anniversary. Barber worked through contacts at the White House to help make that happen.
Although logistical and security issues prevented the statue from arriving in time for July 4, President Trump was shown photographs of the work and ultimately selected the Rose Garden as its location, according to Barber and Lundeen’s accounts reported by the AP.
Trump later called Lundeen and left a voicemail thanking him for the sculpture.
The Jefferson statue now stands among several historical sculptures displayed in the Rose Garden, including representations of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin.
For Barber, seeing another project reach the White House represented a continuation of the work that began years earlier with Apollo 11.
Jimmy Carter Monument Set for Naval Academy
Barber’s next major unveiling will honor the late President Jimmy Carter.
Carter, the 39th president of the United States, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and served as a naval officer before eventually entering politics and serving as president from 1977 to 1981.
Barber said he reached out to the Naval Academy following Carter’s death in December 2024 about creating a monument honoring the former president and Naval Academy graduate.
The resulting Carter monument, created by Lundeen Sculpture, is scheduled to be unveiled at the U.S. Naval Academy on Oct. 1, 2026. Published reporting has also confirmed Barber’s plans for the October unveiling.
For Barber, the ceremony will represent another milestone in a journey that began not with sculpture, but filmmaking.
From Filmmaker to Monument Builder
Before his monument projects, Barber built his career producing documentaries through Vanilla Fire Productions.
His transition into monuments was not necessarily planned. What began as an effort to commemorate Apollo 11 gradually developed into years of fundraising, coordinating with sculptors, working with institutions and helping bring large-scale historical projects into public spaces.
The Apollo 11 project was followed by Apollo 13. Then came Sally Ride. Presidential and Founding Era figures followed.
Throughout the projects, Barber has repeatedly collaborated with the Lundeen family of sculptors in Colorado.
His role is different from that of the artists casting and sculpting the bronze. Barber operates largely as a project originator, fundraiser and organizer — identifying historical subjects, raising money and working with sculptors and institutions to find permanent homes for the finished monuments.
That distinction has allowed his filmmaking background and monument work to intersect: both are ultimately about deciding which stories to preserve and how they will be presented to future audiences.
For Barber, that work has increasingly become his purpose.
“The opportunity to shine the light on American exceptionalism, in monument form, is my high honor,” Barber told Presence News.
He summed up the philosophy behind his transition from filmmaking to monuments in another line:
“Once you taste purpose, the taste of simply existing is completely unsatisfying.”
From astronauts who carried the United States to the moon to historical and presidential figures represented in bronze, Barber’s expanding portfolio has turned what began as a single Apollo project into a continuing effort to place pieces of American history in museums, presidential institutions and public spaces across the country.
About Steven C. Barber: Barber is a filmmaker, director and producer with Vanilla Fire Productions. His monument projects have included Apollo 11 at Kennedy Space Center, Apollo 13 at Space Center Houston, Sally Ride monuments at the Cradle of Aviation Museum and Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and collaborations involving presidential and historical monuments.
Sources: The Washington Post Article, Space.com Article, CBS News Article
This story incorporates information submitted to Presence News by Steven C. Barber along with independently reviewed public reporting.