Jess was reminiscing today, remembering times when she explored different places on a whim. I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but she brought up the Boulder Field of Hickory Run State Park in Pennsylvania. I had never heard of it, but it triggered cool memories of my own: running really fast on breakwater rocks by the sea, jumping instinctively from ledge to ledge. Then I began thinking of the geological and oddities of the United States, because that’s kind of the person I am apparently right now. In New Mexico, the Lechuguilla cave system contains one of the world’s largest systems of natural crystal. It’s only recently been discovered and is still being explored, with over 100 miles of caves and tunnels. Jess and I actually came across it in the Planet Earth series by the BBC and the Discovery Channel (a must-see). Bryce Canyon is also just a bit freaky. Although not actually a canyon, it has lots of hoodoos, which are giant pillars formed from millions of years of erosion. The area forms its own natural amphitheatre. America even has its own Stonehenge, claiming to be the oldest man-made structure in the United States (over 4000 years old). It’s located at a place called Mystery Hill in New Hampshire. We’ve even sculpted mountains to make monuments. Almost everyone knows about Mount Rushmore, with the four heads, but few people know about the Crazy Horse Memorial. This is a project dedicated to carving an entire mountain into the figure of the famous Native American who fought the US Army to protect his lands. Some Native Americans believe it is sacrilegious to scar the earth in such a way, especially the Black Hills that Crazy Horse sought to protect. Others do not, as Judith Dupre points out in her upcoming book, Monuments: America's History in Art and Memory.
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Seventeen miles from Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse portrait was begun in the 1940’s by American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski (1908–1982). The passion of Ziolkowski and his family, who continue to carve the enormous statue of Crazy Horse, is unquestioned. As is the fascination the piece wields on the imaginations of the thousands annually who visit its emergent form, one with a kitsch factor that ranks with other nostalgic paeans to the unsullied warrior. Ziolkowski’s will be the world’s largest sculpture when completed. Though it has generated controversy, impossible to avoid in Indian country, Ian Frazier captures the general sentiment when he says, in Great Plains, “The Crazy Horse monument is the one place on the plains where I saw lots of Indians smiling.” The Crazy Horse monument is even bigger than Mount Rushmore; his face is 87 feet high compared to a mere 60 feet for the presidents. In scale, at least, it evens the historical score.
From Monuments: America's History in Art and Memory, coming November 6!
Judith Dupre Visit my site!
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