One-woman show about artist coming to gallery

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More than 20 years ago, “An Evening with Marie Goth” was presented as a part of Art Renaissance Weekend in Brown County. This year, it will make a return to the stage.

The one-act play, written by Brown County resident Lyn Letsinger-Miller, has since been reworked and is now titled “A Sitting with Marie, Time for Sketches, Memories, and a Pot of Tea.”

It places the audience in the role of Goth’s subject, sitting for a portrait as she tells of her life and the people she loved.

Jill Tasker plays the role of the historical Brown County figure, carrying the entire play in this one-woman show. Tasker has a long history of performing, having been on stage and television, but she is embarking upon something new.

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“I’ve never done a one-person show before,” Tasker said in an interview for the gallery. “This is going to be a challenge, but I love challenges, so I was excited.”

In preparing for the show, Tasker reflected on the woman she will portray, saying, “She took her work very, very seriously. … She was a professional and she took pride in her work, and I respect her so much for doing what she did at a time when women didn’t do that.

“I hope (the audience) gets an insight into her heart and her humor, and her love of her family … and her love of her work.”

Tasker has spent the summer exploring the character she is to portray.

“She was passionate about painting,” Tasker said. “She couldn’t imagine doing anything else and she got to spend her life doing what she loved.”

The inspiration for the show came about when a Bloomington man’s family discovered a connection to several of Brown County’s most influential artists. Henry Gray spent time at a summer home as a child with the Weinsteins, who lived across from T.C. Steele in the 1920s. The Weinsteins had a dedicated housekeeper named Katie who took care of the family for 70 years, virtually raising Henry, according to Letsinger-Miller.

The housekeeper was a subject whom Goth painted twice.

Goth was commissioned by Gray’s grandfather to paint a portrait of Katie in front of the fireplace.

“Katie would not sit for anyone but me,” Goth wrote after encountering the Weinsteins and their housekeeper.

Goth detailed the scene vividly in her memoirs: “There was a beautiful stone fireplace on one side of this one-room cabin. Also, there was a spinning wheel and I posed Katie in front of the fireplace with the spinning wheel at back of her as a kind of halo. The sun shown in a small window and touched the thread on the wheel, turning it to gold.”

The family later donated a major masterpiece to the gallery collection.

Henry Gray knew all the Brown County artists as he was growing up through his mother. He became a geologist, working for the Indiana Geological Survey at Indiana University, and he and his wife began collecting paintings.

After Gray downsized his belongings, his daughter and son-in-law looked the art he had collected over the years. They decided that they would like the paintings to go somewhere where they could stay together.

“They came to the gallery,” Letsinger-Miller said. “Their collections were a result of Brown County relationships, so they figured they should go to Brown County.”

In revamping the play after two decades, Letsinger-Miller thought it would be appropriate to center it around Goth’s work and relationships with those in her close circle.

Rather than simply exhibiting paintings during the gallery’s annual Collector’s Showcase, it was decided to add in the reworked performance.

“A Sitting with Marie” will be a part of the 2019 Collector’s Showcase which features the work of Goth, V.J. Cariani, Carl Graf and Genieve Goth Graf.

There will be two performances on Saturday, Oct. 5 and one on Sunday, Oct. 6. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, with shows at 6:30 and 7:15 p.m. Reservations are $50 and include a gala reception throughout the evening.

Doors open at noon on Sunday, with a matinee performance at 2 p.m. Entry is $10, reservations suggested.

The showcase is the gallery’s biggest fundraiser, with paintings loaned by collectors. The community is welcome to visit the gallery and enjoy the life and works of one of Brown County’s most beloved artists.

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For more information, visit the Brown County Art Gallery’s website at browncountyartgallery.org or call 812-988-4609.

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Abigail is a Brown County native dedicated to the community in which she has been raised. She joined the Brown County Democrat newsroom in 2019 while studying English at IUPUC, where she graduated in May 2020. After working as the news advertising coordinator for nearly two years, she became reporter in September of 2021. She took over as editor in the fall of 2022.

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