Red Hook Open Studio This Weekend

This weekend, November 10 and 11th from 1pm to 6pm, me along with about 70 other artists will open our studios to the public. I am very excited to share with you the Red Hook Open Studio information. It will be my first open studio since moving to Red Hook, Brooklyn, two years ago.

Plan your free self-guided walking tour by using the online map https://www.redhookopenstudios.com or pick up a map at Red Hook business or studio during the event. My studio is at 461 VanBrunt Door 14 across the street from Fairway Market, right by the waterfront.

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Running the Edge

Before I left New York for Michigan I picked two books to take with me, Deep Survial by Laurence Gonzales and Running the Edge by Adam Goucher and Tim Catalano. Being here for a few days now I have to laugh at the perfect combination of my choice.

It is not exactly deep survival driving 814 miles with dogs to spend a few charged holidays with the family, but the trip  requires some risk management.  Deep Survival is far more extreme,  it looks at who lives, who dies and why,  in various outdoor adrenalin induced adventures. For anyone who loves to read about the wilderness, adventure and life altering decisions it is a fascinating read.

Next I am into the first 100 pages of Running the Edge by Adam Goucher and Tim Catalano who were University of Colorado running teammates. You may have read reviews that it is unlike any other running book and it is. It is self-help, motivation, spiritual guidance, deep reflection all rolled into one. But what stands out is the runners common thread to reject the idea of living a normal or average life. It  talks about one’s biggest fear being wasted potential. Wow this book is for me, especially right now in my cross roads of mid-life but always wanting more.

I have always had the philosophy, the fear, and the determination to not have regrets on my deathbed. Growing up, my father  talked about how much he hated his job. We would get in discussions of,  “Why do something that you hate so much?”  I vowed then to never be in that position, that I would never do something that would make me profoundly unhappy. He said he did it,  “because of you kids”  to support us and send us to college. I must be really selfish because there is no way I would “waste” my life doing something that I hated, maybe that is why I also vowed to never have kids.  I am not sure why he hated his job but what was tough to see is how it affected his entire life.   I learned some big lessons from those talks, mostly I never want to feel like I perceived  he felt.

For me not having a family of my own is my best choice, I can do what I want and I have. I traveled all over the world, almost all of it paid for by an arts organization, the government, or another country’s cultural department. I have lived  in mountain huts, beach shacks, super deluxe houses, monster apartments and single rooms.  I gave talks and had exhibitions worldwide. I am a tenured professor and I am the chairman of a university department.  I have a second home in another state that I get to go to in the summer. I am making the best choices for me, for who I am. That looks great on the checklist of accomplishments but it is no big deal to anyone who has some passion and a little persistence. It is time for something more.  Enters “Running the Edge.”

Running the Edge is about more, better, and never settling, in ones’ running, education, career, friendships, family, and passion. Running, that is easy to never settle to always chase a new PR. Education that is easy too I love to learn and constantly take new classes.  Career is not so clear. I am an artist, I am  a professor. I am not totally keen on where I teach and I want to make it a better and more competitive department with stronger students and better studios. Or is it that I want to move to a place with stronger students and better studios?  Or maybe I want to leave all together and do something new and different or take the risk of only making art? Or maybe as a money job, I don’t “work” in art anymore and I work in physiology, exercise testing? Then at the end of the day I can go to my studio and make art without having to dump the frustration of teaching art to people I believe are less motivated than they should be? Not making the decisions is passive and I find myself passively waiting for a new opportunity to come through the email to point me in a new direction. Wow that is hard to admit, if I had a friend doing that I would scold them up and down to get their ass out there and make a change and tell them how pathetic they are for not being pro-active. Hilary, you are pathetic, get your ass out there and make a decision to change what you feel is not the very best.

Now I feel better.  I am eager to continue reading Running the Edge. I love the stories that are recounted by  Goucher and Catalano, they make perfect sense to me, the risk and the reward.   What a great end of year reading to move into the better, faster, stronger, smarter me next year. Just the planning of it gets me excited.

So this year in talking with my dad who retired over 10 years ago but immediately went right back to work as a part-timer at the very same job he hated tells me, “Sure I still get mad at my job and I work more hours that I should, but it gives me something to do, some place to go, it keeps me active and thinking and engaging with people.” I will still wonder why that place is not what I would think of as more appealing but maybe it is what is appealing to him, plus it is not my life, it is his.   Now the job is on his terms and he is calling the shots. That is where we all need to be, calling our own shots, making everything what we want it to be and doing what we want to do.

Happy New Year to all the Distance Mavens and here is enjoying a relentless pursuit of excellence in everything.

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Gloria – Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale

Running in the Venice Biennale. The biggest and most illusive artist dream is to be in the biennale, and one never knows how they might get here. Never in a million years would I think running would get me here.

I arrived on Sunday and look the waterbus to Lido. Lido is kind of like Brooklyn to Manhattan. The biennale is just two waterbus, vaporetti, stops from the apartment. It was cool and rainy so I was not sure if I could run on the tank. Fortunately it cleared up and I did two “performances.” It was really cool. I wanted to start laughing but I had to stay serious and keep my head up looking at the lamppost. Seeing the tank tracks moving under me incited a bit of vertigo.

I watched Sadie and Dave’s performances after mine, they are really cool. The pavilion rooms are small and you are very close up to the performers. There is huge tension in the room. You can hear and see them breathing, feel the pressure when they are balancing on the airline seat sculptures. We each perform for 15 minutes, first me, then Sadie, then Dave, then me again. Clearly I have it easy and don’t need much skill to run. The treadmill is very slow only on 5 mph because the tank shakes. This lets me practice quick turnover to make it look like I am running faster, with 180 steps per minute. Clearly Said and Dave have the real skill.
They have been performing all summer and previous to the exhibition were choreographing.

Got to run, it is time for me to go again. More later

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ENDURE: A RUN WOMAN SHOW

When people get ready to go see a performance they look in the closet to see which black shirt they will wear. Is it formal, maybe the button shirt? Is it casual, perhaps the organic cotton t-shirt? But I was reaching into my closet wondering trail shoes or road running shoes. Sounds more like I was going running right? Well, kind of, but not really.

I was getting dresses to go see, ENDURE:  A RUN WOMAN SHOW that begins at Brooklyn’s Old Stone House in Park Slope but takes place in Prospect Park. Before I go any further I must tell you, everyone who has ever run a race, everyone who is running a fall marathon and everyone who has ever even thought about running a race or a marathon or is in any way interested in running or dynamic theater has got to go see ENDURE.

 To began I was at Brooklyn’s Old Stone House getting my entry number. Each ticket is a clever race number that you pin on your shirt. Your race captains hand you a cued up I-pod to hang around your neck. It is playing an original score composed by Sweden-based singer-songwriter Christine Owman. The beats of it made me want to jump around and start running. It was relaxing yet engaging at the same time. I really don’t have language to describe music so I will say it was really cool.

 We start walking along 3^rd Street toward Prospect Park, springing along to the music behind out race leader, Producer Suchan Vodoor.  Each time we saw a person walk or jog by we’d think, “Is this is? Are they an actor?” We walked into the park paying close attention to what is happening around us. We stop. A voice comes on. It is Melanie Jones, Canadian writer and performer of ENDURE. She is talking about racing, about lining up. We see a beautiful woman, a runner not too far from us. There is a countdown, 5,4,3,2,1 we are off. We are asked to run to the end of the trail. We see the beautiful runner dash behind some bushes, we want to chase her, to see who she is, where she is going.

 As we follow we are lend through the woods, down pathways, over trigs and down hills. But don’t worry if you are not a runner, walking is also very much encouraged and anyone can participate.

 Melanie physically leads us as we listen to her thoughts on the I-pod. Those thoughts that every runner has, excitement, self-doubt, pain, but what makes this really special is that she shares all those things we don’t talk about. Like “hey perfect little pony tail, perfect running, I am going to bury you.” Well not exactly those words but words to that affect, words that a “nice person” may not say but deep inside we are not nice, we are there to conquer, picking our nemesis and attacking!  We are taken on a ride, a run, that moves up and down from depression to exuberance, from being the weirdo to being the coveted, from being a non-runner to a marathoner. Quoting from her press release:

 ENDURE is inspired by Melanie Jones experience – training for and completing her first marathon.  “During a long run or a race, every human emotion comes up at one point or another:  rage, bliss, boredom, despair, peace,” remarks Jones. “That, to me, was incredibly rich dramatic ground to draw from…” Admittedly, when she first began her training, the prospect of running 26.2 miles nearly killed her.  But eventually, she learned that simply putting one foot in front of the other could save her life.

 This is theater in a whole new form. The audience becomes part of the piece; it goes far beyond “audience participation.” The more willing you are to interact the more you get from the show. For a runner you get pulled in every direction of the marathon distance and the months of training  leading up to it. You get a lot of surprises, especially because it is set in Prospect Park. A scene that takes place on a park bench may now be occupied by an old man feeding squirrels or near the  finish line a bride or a perhaps piñata will be waiting for you.

Here is a short clip:

 I have been thinking about this show every day since seeing it. I recall it on my long run. I recall it doing my repeats on the track. The show is themed around the marathon but it is about a whole process of evolution, the changes we go through and adaptations along the way. Melanie  takes us up and down and around, emotionally and physically unfolding the narrative in a powerful way. You will not get any better marathon motivation than you get from attending ENDURE.

 ABOUT COLLISION PRODUCTIONS

 Collision Productions, Inc., founded in 2010 by Kym Bernasky and Melanie Jones, is a dynamic artistic partnership focused on the creation and development of innovative new work by crossing artistic disciplines. Collision craves (and creates) environments, works of art, and experiences that are transformative, uplifting, life-affirming…and magical.

 ENDURE: A RUN WOMAN SHOW
September 24 through October 23
Saturdays and Sundays – 10AM & 3PM
Old Stone House, Park Slope Brooklyn
Tickets $25
(Ticket Office on 3^rd Street at corner of 4^th and 5^th Aves.)
Run Time:  70 Minutes

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Running “Maps”

Hilary Lorenz, GPS Running Drawing 50" x 60"

This post is not about running exactly, it is about the artwork that I am making based on running or more exact based on the GPS trails of my runs.

This is a drawing in progress that traces my running routes via GPS. I  devised a system of drawing that color codes workouts such as long runs, tempo runs, interval runs, etc and traces each one on the map at the completion of the run. There will be a whole series such as “The New York Marathon” that just traces my race, or “March” which is all the runs that I completed in March. This drawing contains  just over one month of runs beginning in October.  The runs are as short as 200 meter interval work up to 22 mile run runs from the Lower East Side of Manhattan up to the west side George Washington Bridge and back.

These photos show me working on the actual drawing and various states of completion. I will continue on this piece for approximately 6 months. Also you can see two completed pencil drawings that are a one-day route.

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Big Races, Fast Times

Last Sunday it was a beautiful 45º day with the winds a mild 7 mph. I was in Central Park running the 4-mile race, Run for the Parks. There were a total of 5751 people in this race, 2919 men and 2832 women, 267 of which were in my age group, 40-44. My previous best in the four mile were in 2008 one week before the Boston marathon and following intensive training and a taper, then two weeks ago I bettered that time by 9 seconds, going from a 29:29 to a 29:20. Today I secretly hoped to go below 29:00 but since I just raced the week prior it was a lot to ask.

But this race I began differently. I knew last time the rolling hills at mile 3 slowed me down, so on Tuesday I ran 5 ½ miles of fartleks back and forth over that mile strip, 1 minute at 7:15, 1 minute at 8:45, 20 times. When I began the race today I was relaxed and had a plan of how I wanted to run the race. I was going to experiment and not worry about the outcome. I was going to do what is normally discouraged, put a lot of extra effort going up the hills, push forward and do multiple surges of speed over the whole four-mile course. Well I was so busy going over my plan and not looking at my watch I had no idea what pace I was running, but it felt easy. It felt maybe slow, I was not sure. It was not too stressful. I did get a very bad side cramp during mile three and every time I tried to push the pace on the downhill it hurt a bit more. I decided that I did my plan I will maintain through the fourth mile and kick it in the best I can in the end. I crossed the finish line and looked at my watch, 28:27, 53 seconds faster! Was it that it I could finally race in shorts, was it the wine I drank the night before, (I almost never drink) was it some miracle that happened from one week to the next? What I am convinced of it was my brain. It was having a plan, relaxing and not worrying about the outcome, but about “how to run the race.” It was not about what place will I get, (6th by the way at a 72.2% AG!) but about the tactics of running such a race. It was fantastic.

I tried to keep my first mile the easy, but at the same time get out of the crowed start. Of the 5751 people, I was lined up in the first 1200. I ran the first mile at 7:10, then as the street cleared and the road went downhill I hit the second at 6:45. It felt good to get out of the crowd and really nice to have that pace. My finishing overall pace was 7:06. I pushed up the hills and picked out targets on the back of people’s head and charged after them. It worked, it all worked and it was a joy running over that finish line. This Saturday I have a 10k race, I am excited to set out my tactics on this.

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Dogs, Art, Running, and Racing

This month I have a bit of it all, 4:30am walks with my new puppy, 8pm training runs at the New Balance Armory Track, New York Road Runners Thursday Night at the races –  track race,  an exhibition opening  February 7th and school started.  Plus it is cold.

I feel like hibernating at this time of year, it is cold, last Saturday my 12 mile run was done at -4 degrees, today was almost balmy at 26 degrees, but never the less I don’t like it. Tomorrow is NYRR 1/2 marathon but I am skipping it. Right now my focus is to get quick and all my short runs would not make for a good 1/2 marathon time.

Two weeks ago I got my nerve up to run at the NYRR Thursday night at the races. This indoor meet is for track racers, those speedy folks that run sub 5:00  miles. One man in the 45-49 age catagory ran a 4:28 mile! Clearly speed is not just for the 20 year olds! I thought there is no way I am going to race on that track, despite the fact  I train on it twice a week. Well I am super happy to report that not only did I race that night, I raced this week as well. I ran the mile, 3k, and 1500 meter all on a 200 meter track. Let me tell you, running 15 laps around a small highly banked track is not for the faint at heart, but I did it and ran a 12:48 3k, and  I was not last, but I was lapped. It did great things for my humility and my self esteem, all very positive, it also made me very sore. But I figure it will make me  stronger.

I am also training my new lab puppy, “Homer”  who is now 16 weeks old ans 23 pounds. As you may suspect he is a handful but very sweet. The dogs crawl all over me during yoga which you can see in the video. House-training is not so exciting. The last walk is at 11pm and the first at 5am, sometimes earlier, so I am quite sleep deprived these days. But I think he is going to be a good running partner.

On February 7th I have an exhibition opening in Brooklyn at a new gallery. I have a lot of work to do before that day, I am way behind. But it is going to look spectacular! Everyone is welcome. My info is not up on the website as of today, Jan. 24 but it will be soon.

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