Shaping horse’s head reveals surprise angle

Crazy Horse carving fans have been doing double takes since a series of explosives on March 28 sheared 1,700 tons off their landmark.

Clearly, the horse’s head is angled differently than they thought. But the good news is they can see the change.

The drilling-blasting-bulldozing work is on the longest and widest section of the mountain. Until

Mike White

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski knew their frustration. “You can work for months up there, and you still can’t see much change from down here (at the visitor’s center). People just don’t realize the size of that mountain.”

Enter philanthropist T. Denny Sanford. His $5 million challenge will raise $10 million exclusively to carve the mountain as others match him dollar for dollar. The money will answer the long-wished-for help to accelerate the sculpting progress.

“It’s going a lot faster (than when Korczak started),” Memorial President-CEO Ruth Ziolkowski told students at the Native American Journalism Career Conference.

“Now that we have the challenge grant from the T. Denny Sanford Foundation, you want to go faster, which is what they want and what the public wants. But you have to temper that with ‘do it right’ and safety. But it is going to be done faster than anybody thought, up until this point in time.”

To balance speed, safety and attention to Korczak’s details, the mountain crew is changing.

The Memorial has hired a superintendent, returning to an administrative structure similar to that used during carving of the face. Mike White, a heavy civil/highway construction and mining projects veteran from New Hampshire, joined the crew as they attended International Society of Explosives Engineers training in Wyoming in mid-April.

Mrs. Ziolkowski told the students that the crew will add two more members by this summer. In the meantime, the technical support staff is working with laser scanning consultants to further refine measuring coordinates so work on the mountain stays true to Korczak’s artistic intent and accommodates realities of the mountain that he knew would modify his design.

“Korczak always said carving Crazy Horse, once he had the model completed, was a job of measurement and just following the plan he had. That’s all we have to do. We don’t have to create artwork, just follow what we have. He did leave things so we could follow what he gave us and end up with his work,” Mrs. Ziolkowski told the journalism students.

They saw two blasts on work areas 280 feet from the top of the carved face. The explosions removed 1,200 tons from the north and south ends of the carving. The “280 bench,” the seventh of 11 benches wrapping the 219-foot horse’s head, is now half finished.

Blasts in mid-March completed blocking out on the horse’s “eye” level, the “260 bench.” It took two years.

Once the horse’s overall rough pattern is completed, crews will begin carving the details. No finish date is set. “I can’t tell you when because I don’t know,” “Mrs. Z” said.