Pat Perry dabbled in painting while living in Ohio, even teaching occasional elementary school art classes. Moving to Georgia in 1983, she became an artist in earnest.
She had tried her hand at oils and acrylics, but by the time she came here, she had switched almost exclusively to pastels, applying raw pigments to paper with crayon-like sticks rather than daubing paint on canvas. And over the past few years, she turned to creating collages.
She took numerous classes with master artists, both locally and farther afield. She entered local juried art shows and won some prizes. She turned out innumerable pastels, the majority of them focusing on flowers, often those she had grown herself.
Barbara Riordan, a Sandy Springs painter in oils and acrylics, said Mrs. Perry was a phenomenal artist.
"I look at her work in awe," she said. "Pat's art, and her life as well, was reflected in her personality -- her warmth, her caring, her genuineness.
"Pat's landscapes and flower scenes were so vibrant and intense with color. She went to the soul of her subjects. Looking at her works filled you with peace and joy," she said.
Wini Hall, a mixed-media artist from Woodstock, also admired Mrs. Perry's work, whether she was rendering floral settings or landscapes, representational or abstract. "They were beautiful and well-crafted," she said.
Another mixed-media artist, Betsy Cozine of Sandy Springs, called Mrs. Perry a trouper. "Even after her health declined and she had to carry an oxygen tank with her, she continued to be creative. She had such a flair," she said.
Mrs. Perry belonged to Plein Air, an informal group of 18 or so artists who get together monthly at a picturesque site to paint or in a gallery-like setting to have their works critiqued.
"Pat joined us on painting excursions to Monteagle and along the Chattahoochee," said the group's founder, Kathy Forbes, an Atlanta watercolorist. "I recall Pat organized a wonderful gathering for us in the garden of a private home on Lake Windward."
Patricia Antoinette "Pat" Perry, 82, of Cumming died Wednesday at Embracing Hospice of cardiac complications. A memorial service will be at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 5 at Roswell Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in her memory to Doctors Without Borders, P.O. Box 5030, Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030.
Born and reared in Indiana, Mrs. Perry earned a degree in education from Wilmington College. She taught elementary and junior high grades in Dublin, Ohio, switching to substitute teaching as her family grew.
A son, Robert K. Perry of Greensboro, N.C., recalled his mother developed a reputation as a candy maker around Dublin, a Columbus suburb.
"Mom would have a group of mothers over to our house, and together they would have a blast cooking large pots of different flavors of hard candy until the candy mixes were thick, then pouring them onto slabs of marble, cutting them into bite-sized pieces and wrapping them with Cellophane and ribbon for distribution around the neighborhood," he said.
Mrs. Perry also went beyond the call of duty as a den mother for Cub Scouts and Blue Birds. "Mom organized baseball games between different packs, and I'm sure our den did more craft projects than any of the others. I know we boys went through a lot of construction paper," her son said.
Her husband, Robert C. Perry, said that when he was transferred by his company to the Atlanta area, he and Mrs. Perry settled first in Alpharetta, where she became active in the Women of Windward social club. Years later, the two of them downsized and moved to Cumming.
"At age 60, Pat took up tennis and got pretty darned good at it," he said. "She took a lot of instruction -- to the point that she felt she could tell me, after I had played all my life, what I was doing wrong."
Survivors also include two daughters, Kristine Stilwater and Katherine Perry, both of Huntsville, Ala.; two other sons, William Perry of Van Horn, Texas, and Stuart Perry of Roswell; and two sisters, Juanita Setrie of Spiceland, Ind., and Garnet Vanhouten of Alamogordo, N.M.
About the Author
