These two sites have to be in the same blog. Not only are they about 30 minutes apart, but they both contain amazing sculptures in stone. Crazy Horse is more elaborate than Rushmore, or will be when it is finished.
Mount Rushmore is simply astounding. When I was reading about it, I kept seeing all this information about the sculpture. I wasn’t all that interested at first. But then when you learn all about the effort made by Gutzon Borglum it is astounding. Not only did he have to choose the Presidents, make the design, and help raise money- he also had to figure out how to enlarge the design he had, and get the top limestone off the mountain and get to the granite beneath using dynamite! He studied the old renaissance masters and learn how to use the old methods of sculpturing an object too big for inside. The features of the presidents were blown off and then only slightly chiseled and smoothed over. The workers had to hang from the top of the mountain to do that. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if one of the noses fell off!?!??
The Crazy Horse Memorial is also astounding. It is maybe halfway completed and is the work of another immigrant, Korczak Ziolkowski. A Lakota elder named Henry Standing Bear commissioned this memorial to recognize the loss of native lands that all tribes or nations suffered. It will depict Crazy Horse astride a horse (at least the front chest and head of the horse) pointing towards the lost lands. The Ziolkowski family still “runs” the process but they follow Korczak’s design and are assisted by volunteers. He knew he would not live long enough to finish this. It is larger than Mount Rushmore and the face and most of the arm are competed. The sculpture uses many of the same techniques as that of the presidents but is more complicated because the design is much more complicated.
The Memorial grounds are as impressive as the sculpture. There are now 2 amazing museums, a cultural center, food court, gift shop and an accredited university at this site. Students from any tribe or nation can attend and part of the cost is paid by working on the memorial. The college offers normal courses, as might be found anywhere, supplemented by cultural courses so the students graduate fully ready to join the mainstream work force. Since Native American students have such low representation in most universities, I found this encouraging. And all of this was part of Kiolkowski’s original dream. Too cool.
