By Del Moon, NSGA PR Specialist

Norma Minkowitz, 86
Westport, Connecticut

Norma Minkowitz has drive. She doesn’t know why or how she got it, but it pushed her from modest beginnings to attain world recognition as a fine artist. It also manifested when she took up running in midlife, found her way to masters track competitions and captured attention with a world record and Senior Games gold medal.

The child of Russian immigrants, Norma grew up in the Bronx of New York City. Her father was a concert and club pianist, and her mother was an aspiring singer. Norma says her brother, Paul, got all the music genes, because she spent her time sketching and doodling. She sat with her mother making stuffed dolls and crocheting on nights when her dad was performing. She dreamed of pursuing art.

Norma was fortunate to attend the prestigious Cooper Union School of Art on a full scholarship. She met her husband, Shelly, there, and her Cooper Union education earned her a job at a large art company as a textile colorist, taking original art and making color combinations of them. In the following edited interview, Norma relates she started selling some of her own designs and got a big break when she started showing craft pillows and other stitched and embroidered items at the American Craft Council’s Museum of Contemporary Craft in New York.

It was then that Norma Minkowitz elevated her work from crafting to fine art. Read on in her words how she has evolved her own style transforming crocheted fiber and found objects into intriguing art statements. Her works are now in the permanent collection of 35 museums internationally.

This is where the story takes its twist. Norma only played street games as a kid but loved to run and knew she was fast. In her 40s she wanted to get more exercise, and her husband bought her running shoes. She never looked back, entering three New York City Marathons in her 50s and learning the importance of training and coaching. She dropped back to shorter distance races and local races for several years, but that competitive drive to test her limits eventually led her to enter masters track and field and Senior Games in her 80s.

Last year Norma surprised everyone – including herself – when she set a world record in the W85-89 400 meter event, and a national record in the 800-meter race at the 2023 USATF Masters Indoor Championships. Incredibly, it was her first attempt at an indoor event, and she had to adjust to a banked track. She then went on to Pittsburgh and set an American record in her 400-meter event at the 2023 National Senior Games presented by Humana.

Norma is now both a world-renowned artist and athlete, a combination never seen before in Senior Games. While unusual, Norma says it makes sense because her activity complements her artistic endeavors. She now exhausts herself running and then can better sit and focus on the often-tedious creative work that has captured the imagination of millions.

Norma Minkowitz may be famous, but her example shows that anyone can improve and enhance their life and well-being by finding their own drive. In our conversation she shares that she is still learning how to fine-tune running and has gotten faster in recent years due to coaching and focused training. We can’t wait to see how she does in Des Moines in 2025. Competition, take notice. This lady is bringing her Personal Best drive!

You are a unique person in many ways, Norma. We are all fascinated that a fine artist has also become a world-record holding track runner!
I post some of my running news on my art page on Facebook and most never knew I did that. But I’ll tell you it’s a wonderful combination because my artwork is so tedious. Most artists work with heavy thread but I work with the thinnest possible threads, almost like sewing thread. That means many more stitches but a fine line effect as if I was drawing with pen and ink. So, I like to exhaust myself with running and then I want to sit and do this relaxing, meditative work.

That makes sense. We’ll ask about your track records later, but first we want to meet the Norma Minkowitz that is famous in the art world. Did you grow up around the arts?
Yes, but in music. I was born in 1937 and grew up in the Bronx. It was a low- to middle-income neighborhood of diverse religions and colors, and we all got along. Both my parents are immigrants from Russia. My father was a concert pianist. My grandfather was a composer and teacher and tried to teach me piano, but I wasn’t very good at it. My mother had ambition to be a singer and that attracted her to my father in New York.

My brother and I both went to the Music and Art High School for gifted children, he for music and me for art. I guess he inherited the music gene. I was always drawing and doodling and making pictures. I loved to draw and my favorite technique was drawing with pen and ink. I am attracted to the linear element that came out later in my fiber art because I consider fiber a line and it is connected to my drawings in pen and ink.

I also made stuffed dolls, wall hangings and detailed objects that my mother, Fania, taught me to make. We sat on the bed of our one-bedroom apartment in the evenings because my father played nightclubs and hotels. He had to give up his quest to be a concert pianist in order to feed his family. He played elite hotels like the Barclay and the Hotel Astor as Alexander Chigrinsky and his Continental Music. I remember he took us to the hotel for New Year’s Eve where he was featured.

How were you able to pursue your artistic leanings from there?
After high school I applied to Cooper Union and Pratt and was accepted to both. Cooper Union only accepts 100 art students, but I was able to get in, and it was free! My parents couldn’t afford to send me.

In my last year at school I met my husband, Shelly, who was an engineering student there. He got his first job at Sikorsky Aircraft in Connecticut and asked me to marry him. We got a garden apartment in Stamford and I kept myself busy wearing an apron and being the good wife at home. One day he asked, ‘Did you ever think about getting a job?’ [Laugh]

Ruh Roh! [Laugh]

My friend Barbara Kokot worked as a textile colorist, which involves taking an art design and creating three or four different color combinations. She suggested I get an interview, so I went to this big company called Cohn-Hall-Marx, and with my Cooper Union background they gave me a job. It paid $80 a week. I really didn’t know what I was doing at first. I later made some of my own designs which they bought. That was encouraging.

I quit when I got pregnant, and I started doing freelance work for another company, and they printed some of my work. That was my early art history as I started caring for my young son, Steven, and later my daughter, Karen. Shelly wanted a better living so he started a homebuilding company in Westport, Connecticut, with his friend Bill Kokot, Barbara’s husband, and they were very successful with it. We bought a house, and 16 years later built our own house in Westport. We have been here 45 years and have been married for 64 years. Have four lovely grandchildren Max, Sammy, Lily and Jack. Imagine that! [Laugh]

So how did you become a recognized fine artist with exhibits all over the world?
I was always doing sculptural work as well as pen and ink drawings. I joined the Society of Connecticut Craftsman because at that time what I was doing was not exactly fine art. I was making pillows and creative wall hangings and selling them to Woman’s Day and other art magazines. A lot of my work started selling.

The American Craft Council had a store under their Museum of Contemporary Craft, and I started showing craft pillows and wall hangings. I even made a huge stitched and embroidered chair. Remember the folk singer Melanie? She bought that chair, and I was encouraged to continue doing sculptural art.

The museum curator, Paul Smith, really liked my work and included me in numerous shows, and then things took off. I was invited to show in galleries and museum exhibitions. My first major show was in 1976 at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art in Ithica, New York, then a show on fiber structures at the Museum of Art at Carnegie Institute, also the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It just kept getting better from there, and my reputation escalated.

My artwork is now in 35 museum collections both here and internationally, and I have exhibited in 20 solo shows that received positive reviews.

Can you give an example of how your craft work is lauded as fine art?
My major way to work is crochet, which is often thought of as a ‘little old ladies’ technique, but when I take it in my hands it becomes almost a transparent mesh filled with detail and cross-hatching as in the drawings. For example, I would crochet around a mannequin or other hard object, covering it with an open stitch and then I stiffen the fibers, slice the fibers so as to be able to remove it from the mannequin. The view is almost transparent, like looking through mesh. Then I can manipulate different threads with color and accent. I can put things inside of it, a heart or another body, or a bird. A lot of my work has birds and flight motif. I love birds and the idea of the freedom of flight.

Well, let’s break from your art and love of flight to your running. You are pretty fleet of foot yourself! You started running late – have you been athletic all your life?
Yes, I was always a bit of a tomboy and enjoyed the street games, you know, Red Light Green Light and Tag. I always wanted to be the fastest even at that age. Cooper Union had no athletics for girls. We just had a gym class, and I was always the swifter one. I really didn’t do anything sports until I got married and started playing tennis, and I was pretty good at it and won a few matches. I tried skiing with my husband and was absolutely terrible at it. I couldn’t figure out how to lean and turn properly. I was fast but couldn’t figure out the science. I hated it, but we did it for 10 years.

Then I started running in 1985. Shelly had put on a few pounds, and I also needed to lose some weight. I joined the local Roadrunners Club and ran with them every summer. In between I started entering local races and always came in first, second or third in my 50-year-old age group. I had no coaching and followed my gut feeling.

I ran three New York City marathons as I turned 50. In the first one I started too fast and had to stop at 20 miles. They took me to the medical tent and ripped off my bib. I was not prepared. The second year I trained with a local high school coach and finished with a 4:06. The following year I had bronchitis but ran the marathon anyways and did it under five hours.

You certainly learned the importance of training and preparation.
Eventually I decided I liked the shorter distances better and wanted to do more serious competition with masters and Senior Games. I qualified in 2018 and traveled to the National Senior Games in Albuquerque in 2019 but tore my hamstring and couldn’t run. I tried to run the 400 and qualified but was in agony and withdrew.

Then I went to the 2022 National Senior Games where I won four gold medals in track and finished first in the 5K. NSGA counted the 5K and all the American track records, but USATF would not ratify it by rules because I had to be 85 when I ran it and my birthday was after the Senior Games event. My time was unexpectedly so good, and I went home a little disappointed.

Let’s finally talk about the world record you ran in the 2023 USATF Masters Indoor Championship. Congratulations!
It wasn’t easy. I was injured and my knee was hurting. I had what’s called a Baker’s Cyst. They’ve drained it several times and it keeps coming back. Next time I see the doctor we’re going to see what else they can do. I am back to running now, but I have to address that.

The world record race was on February 25th of 2023 in Staten Island. I had never run indoors before. I signed up for four races but only completed the two I did well in. I ran the 400 in 1:50:99. I was also afraid of the track because it was banked on the curves. Because everybody else was in their 50’s they stuck me on the highest part, probably thinking ‘She’s 85, it doesn’t matter.’ [Laugh] Of course when we took off those young ladies looked like flying saucers and I had to tell myself ‘Don’t look at them! Don’t look at them!’ At least they didn’t lap me in the 400, but a few did in the 800.

I also had to remember the 400 was two laps and I was afraid I would stop at one. [Laugh] The worst part was the races were only 30 minutes apart. I might have done better in the 800 with more time to recover.

But you now have two huge records, especially for a ”newbie.” You set an American record at the 2023 National Senior Games in Pittsburgh too.
Yes, I ran the 400 at 1:50:04 in the 85 to 89 group. I was scheduled to also do the 200-,800- and 1500-meter races but my knee gave out after that 400 and I had to pull out. I felt like I could have won gold in all of them. It was one of the best races – everything was on schedule with efficient officials.

Now I also set the outdoor national record in the 800-meter at the 2023 Middleton Masters meet last March. But they are not going to sanction it because of their errors by not having the proper paperwork. I’m still upset about that.

How surprised were you that you had actually set a world record?
I didn’t believe it, and then the flares were going up and somebody from USATF interviewed me. I don’t remember what I said. I just remember a lot of tall people around me taking pictures- I’m only 4 foot eleven.

Does this success give you more motivation to continue to strive in your running events?

Yes, I want to do better. I keep thinking my times are going to get slower but they’ve actually improved over 2019! I have a good coach now, Steve Kurczewski, who is an endurance runner himself.

It makes sense, Norma, because you are still learning competitive running and still have the upside to improve. This is bad news for all the ladies in your 85-89 age group!

[Laugh] Hopefully that is true. I didn’t know how to start or pace myself. I also looked at my videos and I tend to slow down when I see the finish line, and every second counts.

I had meniscus surgery last October and I’m just getting back to normal. During recovery I run one tenth of a mile and walk one tenth until you hit two miles. I’m up to walking one tenth and running four tenths. I’ll try to run a mile without stopping soon. I’m now running 2.5 miles without stopping. I hope I stay in good condition.

Norma, let’s close talking about your art again. Most artists are known for certain styles or themes. Many of your works we see seem dark in mood.
My art is kind of on the dark side. A lot of it is black and mysterious. Sometimes it’s connotations of death, sometimes struggles, sometimes nature. I like to work and delve into the possibilities of the human body as well as objects relating to the natural world. I also experiment with mixed media and found objects. Many of my works started with interesting dead branches that suggest a body or form. I crochet right over them and make shapes that conjure up possibilities that people may see in a different way than I intended. I like when the viewer is participating and value that the work is speaking to people in different ways. A lot is about me but also about what people have seen in them.

Your art expresses your darker side yet you do so many positive things and embrace life. You are not a pessimistic person!
I’m not pessimistic, maybe I fear death. But I feel strong and healthy so it’s a weird combination. But there’s also hope in a lot of my work, like a burst of birds flying freely and things that have deep meaning, not laying down and dying but fighting for what you want. I think I fight for what I want in my running. I don’t know where this came from with my sedentary background, but I’ve always pushed myself to the limits. It wasn’t enough to have my work in a craft magazine, I wanted it in a museum.

It hasn’t always worked out running with all my injuries and backing out of races. But I’m still learning and trying to be careful.