Jessie Marie Goth was born in Indianapolis in 1887. Otto Stark, one of the original members of the Hoosier Group was a cousin to her father, Charles. Marie always wanted to be an artist and won a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York City with some of her sketches. She studied for ten years there with William Merritt Chase, Frank DuMond and Robert Aiken and excelled at portrait painting. She met V.J. Cariani, another student there and began a loving relationship which lasted the rest of their lives. Marie returned to Indianapolis when “Cari” enlisted to serve in WWI. Marie and her sister, Genevieve, discovered the peace and beauty of Brown County and bought a cabin to spend summers sketching and hiking. She became a very successful portrait artist in Indianapolis but loved to spend weekends at the cabin. After WWI, she invited Cariani to move to Brown County to recover from the war. They eventually built two separate cabins on the same property, enjoying their strong, independent lives side by side. Marie has left us a legacy of her portraits and her permanent collection of paintings at the Brown County Art Guild.
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