Mary Beery developed arts and artists in Atlanta

“There’s a thread throughout her life of wanting to bring young people to art and to inspire and encourage,” daughter Kathy Light of San Francisco said.

Mary Creety Nikas Beery, artist, interior designer, former executive director of the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, and an Atlanta Arts Festival organizer, died June 28 in Atlanta. She was 91.

A memorial service will be held later, family said.

Born in 1927 to Greek immigrants Savas and Efimia Creety, Beery attended Atlanta Girls High School, Wesleyan College in Macon and the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from UNC in 1948.

It was while she was a student at Atlanta Girls High that Beery was first exposed to the arts, with visits to local museums and travel to New York.

Beery considered those experiences so life-changing that she later named daughter Kathy for Katherine Comfort, her high school art teacher and mentor.

Mary Beery taught art at O’Keefe High School in Atlanta before launching a career in commercial interior design in 1954. She soon formed her own company, Interiors for Business, which the Atlanta architectural firm Heery & Heery later purchased.

Beery’s efforts to promote the arts stretched from Atlanta to the mountain town Rabun Gap and to Lake Wales, Fla.

In Atlanta, Beery and some of her fellow artists were instrumental in forming the annual Atlanta Arts Festival in 1953. Beery continued volunteering at the festival for another 15 years, daughter Kathy said.

After Beery moved to Lake Wales, Fla., with second husband, Larry, in 1988, she pursed her passion by joining the local arts council, the local literary council and the local chapter of the American Association of University Women. While serving as the AAUW’s president, she established an “Art in the Schools” project to exhibit works of art in the local public and charter schools on a rotating basis.

But Beery considered her greatest contribution to the arts her work with the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, friends and family said.

Beery was named the center’s first executive director in 1973. She’d met center founder Mary Hambidge in 1947, and the two shared a mutual interest in Greek heritage. Hambidge had discovered a love for weaving while traveling at the Acropolis in Athens. That connection helped boost Hambidge’s faith that Beery would carry forward her vision for the center, said Jamie Badoud, the center’s current executive director.

“A great debt is owed to Ms. Beery for her hard work to grow the organization, with a deep respect for the creative spirit,” he said.

Beery served as the Hambidge Center’s executive director until 1985 and in recent months donated her art collection to the center.

Longtime friend and fellow art lover Peggy Ahlstrand said the Hambidge Center flourished under Beery’s leadership.

“They (the center) became widely known for the richer and richer programs they offered,” she said.

An artist in her own right, Mary Beery specialized in water colors and photography.

Her main subject was the mountains of north Georgia.

“I think she probably always had an appreciation for art, for beauty,” daughter Kathy said.

The Hambidge Center “gave her an opportunity to really nurture other artists,” she said.

“She always liked the idea of spreading the arts, carrying on Katherine Comfort’s teaching by inspiring and helping young people. I think that was important to her.”

Berry didn’t exclude her own children.

Growing up, they spent Sundays at the High Museum, son George Nikas of Atlanta said.

“One thing I appreciate from her was my exposure to arts and culture,” he said.

Beery is survived by her children, Katherine Nikas Light of San Francisco and George Nikas of Atlanta; and brother Michael Creety of Florida.