Popular Gallery Manager Dies

By Ann Williams
Special to The Lookout

June 1 -- Marie Scott, the well-liked manager of the Art One gallery on the Third Street Promenade, died unexpectedly last month. She was 48.

For Scott, who died May 12, “the gallery was much more than a job,” said long-time friend and employer Helen Randall, who has been deluged with condolences from the many friends, customers and artists whose lives Scott touched.

“In some moments she believed in me and my works more than I could or probably wanted to…a relationship she had with so many,” an Italian artist wrote after learning of Scott’s death.

“From today I’m a little more alone in this crazy, bloody, incomprehensible world,” he wrote.

A “dynamo” who once teased her boss “Get out of here so I can do some work,” Scott could always be counted on to run the business, Randall said.

In the course of the 14 years she worked at the gallery, Scott became “a world of information,” knowing “everything there was to know” about the gallery’s star artists Charles Fazzino and Steve Kaufman, Randall said.

“Caring” and “compassionate,” Scott often delivered artwork to an elderly customer’s home, stopping on the way to do the grocery shopping for the housebound woman, Randall said.

“She loved her customers, and thought of them as friends,” she said.

Scott could relate to anyone from children, to the animals who would come into the gallery, to older people, even to “gang kids,” Randall said. “She treated everyone the same, she wasn’t afraid of anyone.”

She was “wonderful to the genuinely homeless” who hang out on the Promenade, said Randall. At the same time, Scott didn’t hesitate to defend the ambience and civility of the public space for the sake of business owners and visitors.

Scott’s funeral was held May 19, followed by burial in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Scott is survived by her husband Bennie Scott and two grandchildren. Randall described the Scotts’ marriage as “a beautiful love affair. He adored her and she adored him.”