Dorothy Davis Moye

Dorothy Lewellyn (“Dot”) Davis Moye passed away on Thursday, July 22, 2021. Born in 1941 to Rev. Thomas M. Davis Sr. and Mary Bailey Williams Davis, she was the oldest of four siblings. Her father ministered to a succession of Presbyterian congregations, so the family moved frequently during her childhood, from Montevallo, Ala.; to Rustin, La.; to New Orleans, which left a lasting impression; and finally to Greenville, N.C., where she attended Rose High School and was a member of the National Honor Society. We hypothesize that the frequent moves forced her to learn how to make friends from different walks of life. In any case, being a good friend was her superpower, and she cultivated an incredibly wide, deep, and diverse circle of friends over her lifetime. Dot graduated cum laude from UNC Woman’s College, now UNC-Greensboro, in 1963, and later earned a master’s degree in sociology from N.C. State. She married Joe MoyeJr. of Greenville in 1963. They moved to the Atlanta area in 1971 and divorced in 1989.

Dot was curious about everything. She also quilted and embroidered beautifully, loved to travel, spoke French, played the piano and organ, and actively supported social justice causes. She devoted much of her time and many of her talents to parenting her two sons, Joseph Todd Moye and Thomas Williams Moye, in their home of Sandy Springs, Ga. She led their cub scout pack, kept score at their baseball games, and cheered them on at swim meets and soccer, basketball, and football games. At the same time she pursued her interests in the art world and began to develop a career as an art consultant, exhibit curator, and artists’ representative with expertise in fiber arts, other visual arts, and contemporary craft. Over many years she worked on the retail end of several craft and art galleries, served on boards of directors of many local, regional, and national arts organizations, consulted for the Atlanta Braves Hall of Fame, managed conferences for the Surface Design Association, worked as program coordinator for Emory University’s Concerts Division, served as president of the National Standards Council of American Embroiderers, administered dozens of juried shows, and organized dozens of exhibits, the last of which were The Book as Art: Flight Edition, an exhibit at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and Searching for Home, at the Dalton Gallery of Agnes Scott College.

Dot moved to Decatur, Ga., in 1992 and immersed herself in the community. Among many other roles, she helped the city inaugurate its public art program, was a committed member of the Decatur Arts Alliance who organized its annual Book as Art exhibition, volunteered at the Decatur Book Festival, and was a devoted congregant of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, which she served in a variety of ways. She helped organize the church’s volunteer relief efforts for the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and annual MLK Day of Service activities, and found that work especially meaningful. She recently helped organize PORCH Decatur, a volunteer, grassroots hunger relief organization. The city honored her with its Decatur Hometown Hero Award in 2009.

Dot drew on her original way of looking at the world and her individual taste in art to develop a second career as a researcher and writer. She found significance and beauty in X-Codes, the spray-painted messages rescuers left on thousands of homes in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, and created Katrina+5: An X-Code Exhibition, an exhibit for Emory University’s Southern Spaces online journal in 2010. She created a second digital project for Southern Spaces, Lift Every Voice and Sing: The Quilts of Gwendolyn Ann Magee, which highlighted the art of her friend and UNCG classmate, in 2014. These projects earned her an international reputation. She returned to the subject of the X-Codes and art that results from disaster communication for a book chapter that will be published posthumously in conjunction with an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Dot is survived by her brothers Mac (Patt) of Santa Fe, Tenn., and Les of Nashville, Tenn.; sons Todd (Rachel) of Fort Worth, Tx., and Will (Sarah) of Decatur; grandchildren Luke, Henry, and Eleanor; and a slew of loving nieces and nephews who cherish the time the family was able to spend with Dot this summer in her beloved Montreat, N.C.

There will be a celebration of Dot’s life at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 7, at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Decatur. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to PORCH Decatur, Fair Fight, or the UNC-Greensboro Lillie Boney Williams Scholarship Fund.