Throughout her life, Marcy Turk worked at sharpening her imagination. It was a tool she used at her pottery wheel, at her sewing machine and in her garden. She was an artist in all three venues.
"Marcy was a very creative quilter, both with her colors and the combination of fabrics she chose," said a longtime friend, Alice Crawford of St. Simons Island. "She wasn't much for hand-sewing; she preferred to use her machine. She liked to work with hand-dyed fabrics and do decorative embellishments of her quilts so they had a variety of textures as well as colors."
A serious quilter for 20 years, Mrs. Turk made many spreads and throws, but she also fashioned a number of wall hangings and even quilted vests.
As a potter, Mrs. Turk was outstanding, said Rick Berman, an Atlanta sculptor and teacher of art at Pace Academy.
"We worked alongside each other at the Callanwolde Art Center during the 1970s and saw each other many times over the years at gallery receptions and other art events," he said. "Marcy was as kind and pleasant and humble a person as I have ever known. In all the years of our friendship I can't ever remember her saying one thing about herself, but she was always sincerely interested in what I had been up to. Marci was simply the sweetest friend anyone could ever have."
An enthusiastic member of several garden clubs in Atlanta and on the Georgia coast, Mrs. Turk designed the rose garden for the family's Buckhead home. "All four of us children spent a summer laying bricks according to Mother's plan," said a daughter, Julie Martin of Brunswick.
Mrs. Turk's artistic bent ran in her family. Her paternal grandfather was a stained-glass craftsman with Tiffany's in New York and her son, Gregor Turk, is a sculptor and a teacher at the Savannah College of Art and Design's Atlanta campus.
Martha Ann Elizabeth Bentz Turk, 81, died Oct. 9 of cancer complications at her Sea Island home. A reception celebrating her life is planned between 2-4 p.m.Oct.31, at Northwest Presbyterian Church. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in her memory be made to the church. Edo Miller & Sons Funeral Home, Brunswick, is in charge of arrangements.
Raised in Florida and graduated from Florida State University, she came to Atlanta in 1951 where she became a buyer for Davison's department store. A year later, she was married to Dr. L. Newton Turk and resided here until two years ago when the couple, who had for years enjoyed a vacation home on Sea Island, moved there permanently.
Mrs. Turk and her husband made a point of taking their four children overseas to acquaint them with the wider world.
"Our first venture abroad was more of a working trip; we did volunteer work at a hospital in Haiti," said Mrs. Martin. "After that we took more conventional tourist trips with our parents to Japan, China, Greece, Italy and France."
The Turks continued the family travel tradition into the next generation, treating all of their grandchildren to adventures in faraway places.
"If it was my grandparents' intention to whet my appetite to see the world, my first trip with them certainly did the trick," said a granddaughter, Molly Spratt of Atlanta. "In 1997 when I was just 13, they took me to Mongolia. We saw every corner of that country and all of us, grandparents included, rode camels across the Gobi Desert and ate exotic food like reindeer cheese.
"After Mongolia, we did more touristy things like visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing," she said."The whole experience got me interested in Asian culture and I've visited Thailand twice since then."
Survivors also include her husband, Dr. Turk; another daughter, Susan Spratt of Atlanta; another son, Billy Turk of Demorest, and seven other grandchildren.
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