Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect a clarification about Eddie Running Wolf’s heritage.
Eddie Running Wolf said the excitement in art was always the next piece.
Wolf, a Boulder artist, liked seeing the potential in “the blank canvas, the untouched log, the unmarked block of marble,” he wrote on his studio webpage, Running Wolf Studio. After his death this week, Wolf’s family believes the artwork he created will continue to remind people of his legacy.
Eddie Running Wolf died Wednesday after being hospitalized with coronavirus-like symptoms. A GoFundMe account has been started to help his family with medical and funeral expenses. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)
Wolf, 62, died at 2:10 p.m. Wednesday after a battle with an illness that he and his family believed was the coronavirus. Wolf was hospitalized at Platte Valley Medical Center in Brighton on July 20. Two days later, he was put on a ventilator and his condition became critical, according to Wolf’s GoFundMe page.
Wolf’s sister, Margie Albert, of Hudson, said her older brother got sick in March, after attending an art show. He was coughing, enduring a shortness of breath and experiencing headaches and a fever, which are all symptoms of the highly infectious respiratory disease. Though he tested negative for the coronavirus, Albert said he was being treated as a coronavirus patient. He was also tested for pneumonia, a rare form of leukemia and several other illnesses, but all those tests also came back negative, too.
Wolf and his wife Melissa Wolf were together for 37 years. They married in 2000. Wolf’s sons are Calvin Wolf, 23, and Dustin Wolf, 21. The family lives near Fort Lupton, where they had been renovating a home, until Wolf became sick.
Wolf was the oldest of four children. Albert said they grew up in Boulder and their family didn’t have a lot of money. She said she and her siblings were told that they had Native American heritage, but she said she doesn’t know what tribe they were from. From an early age, she said her brother was always drawing and carving.
“He had a gift like nobody I’ve ever seen,” Albert said. “In his heart and soul, he was full Indian. He very much related with their struggles and some of the injustice done to Native Americans.”
Albert said one of the most incredible aspects of her brother’s art was his ability to recreate complex emotions.
“He can capture the emotions and feelings: pain, love, struggle and exaltation. He has a gift, a gift from God,” Albert said.
Vehicles pass by the “Biitoheinen” sculpture by Eddie Running Wolf along Niwot Road on July 28. Wolf died Wednesday after being hospitalized with coronavirus-like symptoms. (Matthew Jonas / Staff Photographer)
Wolf attended Centaurus High School in Lafayette, but dropped out at 16 to pursue his passion for art. He began working in a salvage yard. On his 17th birthday, he was cutting up a Cadillac, when the car’s gas tank exploded. Wolf had third- and second-degree burns on his back and right leg.
While in the hospital, Wolf’s father, Larry, who also was an artist, gave him a kit with eight carving tools in it. As Wolf was rehabilitating, he channeled his energy into wood carving.
Wolf said on his studio web page that he was “enamored” with the culture of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indian art and that he enjoyed studying and replicating the faces of the Plains Indians in his work.
In 2009, Wolf was commissioned by Niwot officials to create sculptures that would honor the area’s Native Indians. Wolf carved from a cottonwood stump the “Niisiitenoot Nii’eihiiho,” or “The Eagle Catcher.” As he explains in a YouTube video about his carving, which was captured by the Daily Camera, the eagle catchers would create a pit in a high area, covering it with branches and enticing an eagle with a piece of bait laid on top of the brush.
“When the eagle landed, they would reach up out of the pit and grab the feet, if they were lucky,” Wolf said.
The Arapahos took some of the eagle’s tail feathers and then released it, the sculpture plaque explains.
He also carved a man riding a horse, which he describes as “an imagined portrait of Chief Niwot,” who was a southern Arapaho tribal leader. Chief Niwot’s people lived along the Front Range, often spending winters in Boulder Valley. Chief Niwot was welcoming to white settlers in 1858, during the Colorado gold rush, according to Visit Longmont.
On the Niwot Colorado Facebook page, the town expressed grief over Wolf’s death.
“We are all incredibly saddened to learn of the death of Eddie Running Wolf whose beautiful tree sculptures stand next to Niwot Road and are truly a part of Niwot’s identity,” the post reads.
Wolf was an active part of Boulder’s Native American Rights Fund, a nonprofit that provides legal assistance to Indian tribes. Wolf showed his art at the nonprofit’s annual art show and described on his studio web page that the people who worked for the nonprofit were like family to him.
Wolf wrote that art was something that always challenged and pushed him.
“Art has never been easy for me,” Wolf wrote. “It is a struggle, a battle. I am rarely happy or completely satisfied with anything. Art is hard, it is an obsession, an addiction. It was from the very start. I would want it to be nothing less.”
Albert said since Wolf’s death, his family has seen tons of support from people that Wolf’s life touched.
“I’m just astounded at the outpouring of love and generosity of the community,” Albert said.
To honor Wolf and help raise money for his medical expenses and funeral, Preston Cates, of Boulder, a childhood friend of Wolf’s son, Calvin, will be attempting to run for 24 hours. Cates, an ultra-runner, will start his run at 2:10 p.m. Sunday at Fairview High School, 1515 Greenbriar Blvd.
For every lap he runs, Cates will donate a dollar to Wolf’s family. He is encouraging others to match his donation and also hoping to raise awareness about the GoFundMe that was started to help cover Wolf’s funeral and medical expenses.
“His name is Eddie Running Wolf, so it’s only fitting that I run for him,” Cates said. “What always stuck with me about Eddie was that he was powerful and passionate. He had a dream of pursuing the art he created … I think that’s a bold way to live. Not many people live like that, they get their normal job and mold their work to their lifestyle. Eddie molded his lifestyle to his work.”
Run for Eddie:
Preston Cates, of Boulder, will run for 24 hours in Eddie Running Wolf’s honor at 2:10 p.m. Sunday at Fairview High School, 1515 Greenbriar Blvd. People are permitted to come and watch, so long as they follow social distancing practices. To help Wolf and his family, visit the GoFundMe page at bit.ly/33EPKG4.
