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 Vallarta Living | Art Talk | June 2006 
Crazy Horse Sculptor's Wife Runs Memorial
 Carson Walker - Associated Press
| | The Crazy Horse 1/34th scale model, foreground, stands in front of the ongoing project Wednesday, June 14, 2006 at Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began carving the likeness of Sioux warrior Crazy Horse into a granite mountain in 1948. Ziolkowski's widow, Ruth, who turns 80 on Monday, continues her late husband's work with the commitment of seven of their 10 children and several grandchildren who have dedicated their lives to fulfilling his dream of carving a mountain to honor all American Indians. (AP/M. Spencer Green) |
When Ruth Ross married sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski in 1950, her husband's vow also became hers: to honor American Indians by carving the likeness of Sioux warrior Crazy Horse into a granite mountain in the southern Black Hills.
That promise is why Ruth Ziolkowski, who turns 80 on Monday, is now in charge of the world's largest mountain carving — one that is still being carved out after more than half a century.
She didn't set out to run a multimillion-dollar operation that spans a 1,000-acre complex, draws more than a million visitors a year and employs 176 — including seven of the couple's 10 children and several grandchildren.
But after her husband's death in 1982, Ziolkowski felt she had to carry through on his commitment.
"It's not a one-person deal. I'm the one that gets all of the accolades and all of the glory and it doesn't need to be that way," Ziolkowski said. "This is a team effort. It wouldn't be here if we didn't have a lot of great people."
Sunday marked the 130th anniversary of the battle that made Crazy Horse famous. On June 25, 1876, the Oglala Sioux war chief led the attack by hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors against Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry, killing Custer and more than 200 of his troopers at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
The former Ruth Ross grew up in West Hartford, Conn., and met Korczak Ziolkowski, a self-taught sculptor, when she was 13. In the late 1940s, she came to the Black Hills with other young people who volunteered to help him start Crazy Horse.
He took on the project at the invitation of Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear, who was prompted by Gutzon Borglum's carving of Mount Rushmore, 17 miles to the northeast of where the Crazy Horse Memorial would be built.
"He decided it would be well worth his life carving a mountain, not just as a memorial to the Indian people," Ziolkowski said of her husband. "He felt by having the mountain carving, he could give back some pride. And he was a believer that if your pride is intact you can do anything in this world you want to do."
Ruth Ziolkowski's main role early on, besides raising the children, was hosting visitors.
After her husband's death, she took over as leader and made some bold decisions. One of the first was to carve Crazy Horse's face before carving his horse.
The massive, lifelike face was dedicated in 1998, the 50th anniversary of the first blast. There is no prediction for how long the project will take to complete.
"You get out of this life what you put into it. It all comes around in a circle. The Indians believe that, and you see it when you get to be 80," Ziolkowski said. "There are lots of things that you did to someone else that comes back to you — and good or bad."
On the Net: Crazy Horse Memorial: http://www.crazyhorsememorial.org |
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