Pat Flammia, beloved CdA artist, dies at 83

Pat Flammia, a well-known regional artist instrumental in helping create Coeur d’Alene’s popular Art on the Green festival, died Thursday evening after a three-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 83.

Flammia was known for his vibrant watercolor paintings, sarcastic humor and love of sailing. He raced boats and fought to protect the environment.

Friends and relatives regarded him as a Renaissance man because of all of the paths he endeavored to walk, his wife, Sue Flammia, said Friday.

Droves of people came to the Flammia home Friday to pay their respects. A candle was lit on a table, surrounded by photographs of Pat. Cards and e-mails relayed condolences and memories from people who could not visit.

Flammia’s artwork, from quirky abstracts to Italian landscapes, hangs on every wall of the home, which overlooks the lake.

A man whose personal chaos often became organized through his art, Flammia lived a bohemian lifestyle that came easy, said Libby Gerber, whom Flammia began to train as a painter at the age of 10.

“Some people try so hard to be artsy or eccentric,” Gerber said, smiling. “Pat was sort of a natural eccentric. He didn’t have to fake it.”

Art on the Green, now in its 38th year, was the product of the Citizens’ Council for the Arts, created by Pat and Sue Flammia and others during a brainstorming session in 1968. This year’s event will be Aug. 4-6 at North Idaho College.

Mary Lou Reed, who was part of the group that launched the event and is an avid promoter of the arts in Coeur d’Alene, said Flammia was one of the “most unpredictable and delightful people I’ve ever known.”

He also believed in a cause. He and his wife took on big issues, including the preservation of Cougar Bay as a major wetlands habitat. Along with Reed and her husband, Scott, the Flammias created Friends of Cougar Bay, a group that helped secure 154 acres of wetlands in the bay next to U.S. Highway 95 as a wildlife refuge.

The environmental work, and Flammia’s love for the arts, earned him renown and praise throughout the area. In a 2003 article on the Citizens’ Council for the Arts, The Spokesman-Review said the organization was one reason why North Idaho is a place worth living – and named Flammia as part of the initial spark of artistic fire behind the movement.

“What made Pat great was that he believed that original thought is good. (He said) don’t be afraid to say what you think,” said Mike Dodge, a close friend.

Mary Duff, a nurse practitioner and friend, said she was the one who informed him three years ago of his cancer diagnosis. Although he knew he might not live through the illness, Duff said, he was not deterred from living life the way he wanted to.

“When he got told that, it wasn’t, ‘Oh my God.’ It was, ‘I have to go to Italy,’ ” Duff said, naming one of the artist’s favorite places.

Sue Flammia said she and her husband traveled to Italy nearly every year for quite some time, and Pat would always have a sketchbook in hand to capture the warm colors of the countryside and soils that had been tilled for thousands of years.

Alan Dodge, another friend who wrote a biographical sketch for an upcoming book on Flammia that will include 20 of his pieces, said art was what made the man move. Even mangled hands – the result of cleaning a snowblower while it was still on and sessions with wood saws – did not deter the detailed touch of the artist.

“Art was what his life was about,” Dodge said. “Art just wrapped the whole thing up. It was really his focus.”