A native of East Chicago, Neil Goodman shows with the Perimeter Gallery in Chicago, and teaches at Indiana University Northwest in Gary. He is another example of why I am so fascinated by this region. It has been the home and birthplace of so many extraordinary people.

<Tangent>I met Neil at the “Drawing the Lines: International Perspectives on Urban Renewal through the Arts” conference held at IUN. The conference discussed such topics as how creativity and culture influence community change; what role the arts and culture play in urban renewal; and what factors need to be considered on a local level when advancing urban renewal initiatives. A topic right up my alley.

I remember being fascinated by the fact that Neil grew up in East Chicago and that the leaders of East Chicago did not know of him or his work, and frankly were not predisposed to care. At the time I was the President of the Redevelopment Commission and Chairing a Committee to conduct a Comprehensive Plan for the city. 

As East Chicago was beginning to redevelop its downtown in North Harbor, I was hoping to get the Mayor, the Director of Redevelopment and the Developers to use Neil’s work in the development plans, unfortunately to no success.</Tangent>

Regardless, there is a lot to enjoy in Neil’s work. You can see his connection to the industrial mid-west and mathematical puzzle books. 

From his bio, in a tone only the art world could produce.

To quote the critic Margaret Hawkins on Goodman’s recent exhibition at “Perimeter” gallery in Chicago, “If much abstract sculpture seems somehow loosely rooted in organic forms, Goodman’s does not. His objects look like physical manifestations of mathematical principals, equations somehow made dimensional and wrought in metal. For all their weight and bulk, they have an airy purity about them, like music. To walk among them is a little like listening to a Bach Fugue.

Thomas Sculpture, What I am Looking at