Artist's lifework a family affair

The letter to his family was written in 1952 but not read until after his death in 1982. “You don't have to do this,” sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski wrote. “But if after I'm gone, and you take up the task of doing it, don't ever let it go.”

His family took those words to heart, and took up his lifework of telling a story in stone.

The Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer, S.D., will be the largest mountain carving in the world. Ziolkowski began work on the mountain in 1948. Today, his widow, Ruth, and seven of the couple's 10 children carry on.

Though Ruth may not be around to see it, the 83-year-old is confident it will be completed.

Any idea when?

“The answer is I don't know, and neither did Korczak,” Ruth said in an interview earlier this month. “It's not because we want to give you a hard time. It's because we don't really know.”

Standing at 6,740 feet above sea level, the carving, when complete, will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high. Consider just how big the monument is: all four presidential heads on neighboring Mount Rushmore would fit inside Crazy Horse's head.

Carving Crazy Horse combines artwork, drilling and explosives. It is time-consuming because each blast involves at least two dozen steps.

The hole in the mountain's face, which will be slightly under Crazy Horse's outstretched arm, took two years to blast through.

Boston native Korczak Ziolkowski first made a name for himself as a sculptor in 1939 when he won first prize at the World's Fair for his artwork and spent time working on Mount Rushmore. That same year, Chief Henry Standing Bear and a group of Lakota chiefs asked him to carve into the side of a mountain a representation of Lakota war leader Crazy Horse.

Chief Crazy Horse was a leader of the Sioux that defeated Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

Ziolkowski accepted the invitation and arrived in the Black Hills of South Dakota to begin work when he was nearly 40. The sculptor dedicated the rest of his life to building the Crazy Horse Memorial.

In the beginning, Ziolkowski worked alone on the mountain. The first blast — June 3, 1948 — was the only blast that year. So much other work needed to be done first. There was nothing but trees at the site. Ziolkowski had to build a place to live and a 741-step staircase up the side of the mountain, which he would climb several times a day.

Ziolkowski, and now his family, intend for the Crazy Horse Memorial to be more than a mountain carving. The vision has three parts: the carving, an Indian Museum of North America and, ultimately, University and Medical Training Center for the North American Indian.

“Korczak wanted to carve the mountain to help give back some pride to the Native American people,” Ruth said. “But he knew it would be a tourist attraction as well and it was going to make money.

“He did not want it just for someone to get wealthy. He wanted that money to go to something worthwhile, so he planned the university and the museum. That's the ultimate goal. When the mountain is done, these projects will have the Indian people involved.”

The memorial is a private, non-profit undertaking.

When Ziolkowski died in 1982, the project was nowhere near completion. But there was never a doubt about carrying on.

Work has continued, slowly but steadily, since Ziolkowski's death. The family took heed of the letter he left them, and Ruth and seven children took on the task of completing the vision.

“It's neat, it really is. It's a little like the family farm used to be,” Ruth said. “No one said that you'll run the restaurant, or you're going to work on the mountain, or that you're going to run the gift shop. But there was a job to be done and when one of the youngsters took a liking to it, they did it.”

Six grandchildren have become a part of the family project and, last year, a great-granddaughter joined the effort.

“I told Korczak that I would keep Crazy Horse together,” Ruth said. “But I didn't know that I could carve the mountain. He didn't argue with me, and I should have known then. You can't keep Crazy Horse together if you don't carve that mountain. He just knew it was going to get done.”

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