Ah, Americans!
If you had a mountain in your area, that wasn't a national monument, what would you do with it?
In South Dakota there is the Crazy Horse Memorial. This fascinating project is staggering in its scope. The native tribe from the South Dakota, the Lakota, own the mountain as part of their traditional land (whats left of it!). The Lakota have one very famous son, known as Chief Crazy Horse. He fought a very famous battle called Wounded Knee.
The Lakota, rightly proud of their famous son, wanted a monument to honour him. They agreed with a local artist/sculpturer in 1948 to create a monument to Crazy Horse and they gave the whole mountain to the project. The Lakota and the artist Korczak Ziolkowski knew that this monument could never be completed in one mans lifetime. So has begun is a project that is to handed down from father to son or the next who-knows-how-many generations until the project is finished. Kroczaks son is now middle aged and has spent his whole life carving the mountain, with his son soon ready to take over. I wish I could be here to see it when its completed. Great story! http://www.crazyhorse.org/index.shtml
Or instead of a bold, and noble, and beautiful project; you could turn your hand to something a little more garish and pink! I give you the world heritage site yet to be, Salvation Mountain, California! Enjoy! http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/CANILsalv.html
;)
2 comments:
Fascinating. Many years ago when the world was young and internet was but a dream, I read through a big book of "interesting facts" that my own father had from his own childhood. It had a great page on Mount Rushmore. You know, that mountain in the U.S where the faces of several U.S presidents are carved. It all looked absolutely titanic in size, and I wanted to visit some time. Only years later when seeing another photo did I discover that there had been a clever use of photographer camera angles, because they were much smaller than imagined. Btw, my god that salvation mountain is hideous LOL
I still want to see Mount Rushmore, if for nothing else than to pay homage to Hitchcoks North By North West. Or possible Team America (Fuck Yeah!). Not sure which one ;)
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