I was blessed with a visit from a unique friend the other day. She is someone I have known for years, but only online. She decided to make a road trip cross-country to visit with my family, and drove from Detroit, Michigan to where we live in Lead, SD. One thing she was very adamant about was visiting the Crazy Horse monument. When she was last there, they had only blasted away the forehead. Now, the entire face was complete. To give you an idea of how magnificent this project is, when completed, it will dward the Washington Monument by 8 feet and stand taller than all of the pyramids in Egypt. Mount Rushmore could fit in the hair behind the head in the sculpture. It all began 50 years ago with a lone man hiking to the top of the mountain and single-jacking (drilling by hand using a drill bit and a sledge hammer) four holes to blast the first 10 tons out of what now has been over 8 million tons of rock to be dislodged from the mountain.
Here I am standing with my friend Nicole, and you can see the progress of the sculpture in the background. As always, click on the thumbnail for a larger image.
This plaster sculpture depicts how the project will look when complete. My daughter is sitting at the foot to give some scale - the sculpture here is 1/34th of the actual size of the mountain sculpture, which can be seen in the distance.
Here you can see the proud face of Crazy Horse from the base of the mountain.
To put it further into perspective, this is a picture of me holding my daughter at the base of the sculpture.
There are no known pictures of Crazy Horse. In the 40s, sculptor Korczak created his first "template" from wood based on "word pictures" from the Native Americans who approached him to perform the work.
The center is rich with archaeological artifacts and Native American crafts. Here is a family registered with a tribe demonstrating a dance.
The regalia worn during the rituals and dances is beautiful.
Korczak was very talented. Here is a depiction of his fighting stallions sculpture. The original was in wood and balanced on the tail of a single horse. This bronze larger-than-life replica was commissioned and originally placed at the state capitol, and was later moved back to Crazy Horse.
I'm not usually a gift shop person, but the story moved me ... how a man was humble enough to begin by himself on a project so bold as to change the appearance of a mountain. He did not worry about how long it would take or what resources he had available, he just started with the first blast and worked on it day by day. His passion was so great that he died before even seeing the completed face. It was a full 50 years after his first hole was dug that the face was finally unveiled - and that is only a small fraction of the statue. When asked why he took on this task, he explained that it was not important when the monument will be finished, only that he continue the dream. This quote really moved me, so I picked up a stone that had these words written across the face to remind me of where I am going in life:
When the Legends Die
The Dreams End
When the Dreams End
There is No More Greatness
We are therefore asked to "Never Forget Our Dreams."
Jeremy
Here I am standing with my friend Nicole, and you can see the progress of the sculpture in the background. As always, click on the thumbnail for a larger image.
This plaster sculpture depicts how the project will look when complete. My daughter is sitting at the foot to give some scale - the sculpture here is 1/34th of the actual size of the mountain sculpture, which can be seen in the distance.
Here you can see the proud face of Crazy Horse from the base of the mountain.
To put it further into perspective, this is a picture of me holding my daughter at the base of the sculpture.
There are no known pictures of Crazy Horse. In the 40s, sculptor Korczak created his first "template" from wood based on "word pictures" from the Native Americans who approached him to perform the work.
The center is rich with archaeological artifacts and Native American crafts. Here is a family registered with a tribe demonstrating a dance.
The regalia worn during the rituals and dances is beautiful.
Korczak was very talented. Here is a depiction of his fighting stallions sculpture. The original was in wood and balanced on the tail of a single horse. This bronze larger-than-life replica was commissioned and originally placed at the state capitol, and was later moved back to Crazy Horse.
I'm not usually a gift shop person, but the story moved me ... how a man was humble enough to begin by himself on a project so bold as to change the appearance of a mountain. He did not worry about how long it would take or what resources he had available, he just started with the first blast and worked on it day by day. His passion was so great that he died before even seeing the completed face. It was a full 50 years after his first hole was dug that the face was finally unveiled - and that is only a small fraction of the statue. When asked why he took on this task, he explained that it was not important when the monument will be finished, only that he continue the dream. This quote really moved me, so I picked up a stone that had these words written across the face to remind me of where I am going in life:
When the Legends Die
The Dreams End
When the Dreams End
There is No More Greatness
We are therefore asked to "Never Forget Our Dreams."
Jeremy
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