Thursday, Sept. 8, 2005 | 8:28 a.m.
Pancakes, bacon and eggs at the assisted living community were not part of her diet.
Fried chicken? She wouldn't have it. Goodman, who died last year at 93, ate salads, fresh chicken breasts, fresh fruits and fresh vegetables. She demanded variety and insisted that others looked at their own eating habits.
Legend has it, to ensure that supply would meet demand, Goodman led a riot of sorts. Followed by her table mates and their walkers, Goodman approached the food director at the senior living facility and demanded an expanded menu of fresh food. "What she did is let other people take a look at their diet," said Patty Allsbrook, director of activities at Seville Terrace, where residents still talk about the late resident. "They can eat whatever they want. She just kind of said to everybody, 'You know, why are you eating that?' "
This was typical of the artist, mother and grandmother. As with anything in her life, she asserted herself, she took charge, she was expressive. She shared viewpoints, told stories, and when she could, offered help. Her energy and outspokenness permeated nearly facet of her life.
"She was a pistol," said her son, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who referred to his mother as the classic bohemian. "The first of the independent women. Very outspoken, very opinionated, drew no distinction between men and women."
Much of this fire translated into her artwork: bronzes, inspired by daughter Erika Goodman, a prima ballerina with the Joffrey Ballet; terra cotta caricatures of urbanites waiting for the bus, pieces she created in her later years; and narrative sculptures of life growing up as the oldest of five girls.
Her paintings referenced varied styles, including a Hockney-esque portrait of son Oscar and his wife, Carolyn.
"She often draws on the Avant Garde style of the late 19th, early 20th century. Degas. Picasso. Matisse," said Libby Lumpkin, director of Las Vegas Art Museum, where a two-week exhibit of Goodman's work opens Friday.
"She was a very vivacious, spirited woman and that comes through in her art," Lumpkin added. "Technically it's highly refined and it has an energetic spirit. The terra cotta caricatures of people in Philadelphia have a strongly curious, humorous quality to them. There's a comic vein that runs through that work."
But, Lumpkin said, "Her best works are the bronze works that depict the ballet dancers. There is movement in the work and she is very good at depicting movement."
Goodman was a volunteer and lecturer at Las Vegas Art Museum. Docents and museum officials knew that she had studied art, created art and received her doctorate in art therapy when she was in her 70s.
What they didn't know is that she was so prolific and accomplished.
When museum officials made condolence visits to her son's house, they they realized that the small honorary exhibit they were planning would most likely expand. Goodman's family members coveted the works and Oscar Goodman's house was filled with a collection of his mother's work.
"She lived and breathed art," granddaughter-in-law Emily Goodman said. "She was such an extraordinary woman and her artwork is a reflection of her very interesting and colorful personality."
Physical maladies late in life did not keep Laura Goodman from creating art, Emily Goodman said. It did, however, influence her style in that it was more simplistic.
In much of her sculpture, movement is a common theme. The bronze ballet pieces were inspired by daughter Erika, who in addition to the Joffrey Ballet danced for George Balanchine in the New York City Ballet.
"Erika was a muse for Grandma Laura," Emily Goodman said. "Movement was a very big part of her artwork and so much of the beauty of her artwork.
"Grandma Laura, to her dying day, was completely enamored with Erika."
Born in Chester, Pa., Laura Goodman lived her whole life in the Philadelphia area until she moved to Las Vegas. She received her bachelor's degree from the Moore Institute of Art in Philadelphia, studied with Jacques Lipchitz, Milton Avery and Hans Hoffman and shared her interests with her family.
"She was always taking us to the Philadelphia Art Museum," Oscar Goodman said. "When we went to New York she'd take us to the Museum of Contemporary Art.
"Our home always had her art in it. When we went to school, we took her art with us."
Goodman's dorm mates also borrowed Laura Goodman's art. At one time, Oscar Goodman said, his entire dorm at Haverford College, in Haverford, Pa., was covered in his mother's art.
Goodman created and exhibited in Philadelphia, where she received the Philadelphia Professional Sculptors Award. She was an ardent supporter of the arts and created Vision Thru Art, a program that teaches sculpting to blind and visually impaired students.
She loved Philadelphia and was a city person. Leaving Philadelphia, where she lived across from the museum, was difficult, family members say. But she found comfort at Las Vegas Art Museum with docents such as Carolyn Collette, who refers to the year that she knew Goodman as being "the best year of my life."
Though Lumpkin wasn't with the museum when the exhibit was conceived, she said that she supports this type of exhibit as part of LVAM's mission of highlighting local art.
"It comes out of a heartfelt desire to honor her memory," Lumpkin said. "Everyone just fell in love with her because she was such a spirited character and was an important part of the Las Vegas Art Museum family."
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