Reggie at Rushmore

On a clear, beautiful July afternoon we visited the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore on the way home to Montana. It was the first time for me and the first occasion for Ruth to visit there in a long time. Though I knew it was because they seem black against the horizon because of their thick covering of evergreens, I wondered whether the hills actually gained their name because so much of their rock is gray to black in hue. They also seem dark because of the needle formation of so much of the dark rock against the sky.

What interests me here though is the Mt Rushmore carving itself and the experience of visiting there.

Does the artist create design, or is the final development a combination of some inner spirit of material and the artist’s effort? Especially in the shadowed afternoon light, the historical figures seemed to me to rise out of the rock as if still dreaming, almost ghostly appearances from their respective eras. In shadow, they seemed hardly distinguishable from the rock face itself when I first looked through a strong monocular. Then they seemed to gradually appear, first Washington, who stands out more prominently, then Lincoln, and finally Jefferson and then Teddy Roosevelt. Photographs taken in morning light and enhanced for magazines make the images appear far more obvious to me.

I was amazed at what a tourist haven this is even though I should have known it would be this way. To walk to the base of the carving you first park in a lot some distance away and then proceed through a visitor center arcade, then through a walkway with all the state flags crisscrossed overhead, with the date of each stat’s admission to the union displayed. I was surprised to remember when Ruth read it out to me that Georgia was the fourth state to be admitted to the new union. Ruth also told me that the visitors center was previously the closest vantage point on the carving.

There was a constant buzz of people sound, punctuated by repeated cries of child and adult amazement over the presence of a working guide dog in their midst. The constant focus for nearly everyone though was the carving itself looming overhead. People gazed at history in rapt attention, often with ice-cream cones in hand.

For Reggie, the walk was an advanced exercise in ascending and descending stairs of all formations while ignoring the constant proximity of curious people and other people oblivious to his presence as they brushed by or passed in front of him without noticing they had obstructed his progress. Reggie handled all this in his usual unflappable manner, but he was ready for quite a “Reggie Party” when we finished what must have seemed to him to be an unending passage of the President’s Walk.

The carving design was to have been something quite different at first. There was an initial attempt to represent the Declaration of Independence among the figures, but the writing apparently wasn’t visible from a distance. This left the figures alone. There was then an attempt to carve the figures with exposed torsos, but the rock beneath the granite layer from which the faces are carved was too brittle. The faces still took doctoring to shape because of cracking rock, and they still need maintenance to keep them in place. The result though was something more appealing to me than full figures would have been.

These faces seem more part of the rock itself, less sculpted in relief than they would otherwise have been. We went later for a glimpse of Crazy Horse, not anywhere near completion and anything but subtle. It appears to me to be nothing short of destruction of a landscape.

The interesting thing too is how the artist grew in understanding and appreciation of these historical figures as he worked. It became as much a process of internal growth as it was of outward activity. The long process and numerous forced changes of plan enhanced this deepening. If a work of art represents a spiritual journey of awakening, then this process certainly exemplifies this pattern to the full.

If future human generations were to lose historical connection by some calamity, they would then most likely worship these figures as some type of deity representations. They would be caught up by the mysterious presence of these four figures here and impressed by the mystery of their creation. There is an almost religious zeal in the present tourists, even if hidden by the noisy bustle and the ice-cream cones. People are more than simply curious at heart about what these figures represent. Even if the initial experience is shallow, it may deepen in memory as the individual matures.

It was a far more transcendent experience for me than I had imagined it could be. I had always maintained a cynicism about the Rushmore carving, thinking of it as over exuberant patriotism and supposing I would rather the landscape spoke for itself. More than being imposed on the landscape, however, these figures seem to rise out of it, and it is significant now to have these presences represented near the center of our continental nation with Alaska now included. This effort involved many lives, some of people finding work during the depression by being here. They are to be remembered also.

From here we drove west from the black hills into the Wyoming landscape and the real West at last. I felt glad to be in this Western environment again. If I have to leave it, then I will want to come back. There is something special about the Wyoming landscape. It has a particular ruggedness that can be seen in some parts of Montana as well, but that isn’t as predominant. I was glad to travel this landscape in the evening light and to arrive finally in Gillette for our overnight stay.