Blogs
By Peter Cobin, USATF Northwest Region News Coordinator
Outside the Fence to Inside the Stadium: The Making of a 70 Foot Running Sculpture
Inside the main gate, next to the track at Oregon State University’s Whyte Track and Field Center is the newly created Distance Plaza Sculpture. Seventy feet wide and ten feet high, it depicts 24 runner’s shoeprints rendered in steel, attached to a concrete background.
Visual artist and USATF Certified Official Zel Brook meticulously duplicated the wear pattern on each shoe, showing the result of dedicated miles of training and competition by each individual athlete.
Dedication and training are important traits in Zel’s career as well, because they enabled her to surpass limits. In high school, she was prohibited from running on the track, which was fenced in and locked after the boys ran. At the University of Oregon, she was coached by Bill Bowerman, who told her about his attempts at perfecting running shoes. At the old Hayward Field at the University of Oregon, she was given a pair of shoes from Phil Knight before his company became Nike. Still, she recalled, “I could not compete because it was before Title IX and females weren’t eligible to run in sanctioned meets.”
Zel later moved to Corvallis, Oregon for work and a graduate degree at Oregon State University (OSU), and she continued to run, alone, on OSU’s Bell Field. “Then that track was ripped up and there was no longer any competitive track at OSU.” Over the years, she collected a stack of track and marathon racing bibs running and competing elsewhere as well as two art degrees.
End of story? Hardly! Zel summed up, “Fast forward, OSU has a new track with competitions, and I am now a certified official with a Distance Plaza running shoes sculpture at Oregon State University’s track.”
Now, Zel is welcomed at art galleries internationally and at state-of-the-art sports facilities.
As a University of Oregon Hayward Field official, she mainly officiates javelin and pole vault. One time at Hayward Field there was a thunder and lightning storm, so the pole vault competition was moved to the pole vault training area under the stadium while the storm continued outside. Zel remembered, “I have never been able to do this elsewhere! This was unique!”
The Distance Plaza Sculpture was a special challenge. “My art has always involved research and development for one unique artwork,” Zel explained. For this multi-tasking project, she worked with runners collecting shoes and making drawings, worked with materials applying concrete adhesive to install the steel parts, and worked with the logistics of installing the structure during construction near the track.
She has the dedication and training needed, and she knows her motivation. “I have always been aware of how amazing it is to give back to a sport I have loved so much. The athletes are a real study of steadiness under pressure.”
You can see more of Zel’s art at: Sculpture Gallery
