The Art of Track and Field

EUGENE, Ore. -- A pole vaulter launches himself into the sky.  An athlete propels herself across the long jump.  A group of runners race toward the finish.

These powerful images celebrating track and field are front and center at local art galleries.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, on the University of Oregon campus, is showing photographs from noted photojournalists like Dave Burnett and famed portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz in "Faster, Higher, Further: The Spirit of Track and Field." | INTERVIEW

The museum has two other exhibits in conjuction with the Trials: Edward Burtynsky: The China Series, which depicts of the social and physical changes in China, and The Thinking Body, featuring contemporary works from metalsmiths and jewelers.

A few blocks away from Hayward Field, "Track Town USA" is showing at the Maude Kerns Art Center.

The mixed media exhibit has work from 12 different artists.

To lure people away from the campus area, the DIVA Center has put together a brochure called Art and the City.  It features a list of shops and a guide to art in Downtown Eugene. 

Mary Unruh, the director of the DIVA Center, distributed the brochures to local hotels, so they can hand them to Trials visitors when they check in.   

The DIVA Center has six galleries, each with a different medium depicting motion.

Some popular works include kinetic sculptures made from steel and river rock invite people to set them in motion and larger than life paintings of runners that recall athletes in ancient Greece.