July 16, 2012 Crazy Horse Memorial

This afternoon we visited the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is under construction. The sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski (born in Boston), began the project in 1948 and died in 1982. His refusal of all governmental financing, along with other setbacks, caused the work to go very slowly. After his death, his wife and 7 of his 10 children have continued work on the rock sculpture. There is a huge Indian Culture museum on site full of fascinating objects and photographs. We watched a short film about the whole project and it included Mr. Ziolkowski, speaking about his early years and a particular air compressor he bought second-hand, made by Buda. He would crank it up, and laboriously climb 741 steps up to the top of the mountain, and halfway up he would hear the old Buda say "kaput..kaput.....kaput" and die. He then had to climb back down and crank it again. Fascinating interview! It would be easy to spend a whole day there, and we thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon.











Mountain being sculpted; recognition from JFK; scale model of the sculpture.











Outline of finished sculpture superimposed on mountain; Native American Barbi Dolls in the museum; and the old Buda compressor, saying "kaput"!