Missing Sue Flammia

Sue Flammia, the founding spirit of Art on the Green, quietly slipped away from us last December.  Her gracious guiding hand will be sadly missing from this year’s Art Festival.

Art in the Green was only a twinkle in Sue’s eye forty-eight years ago, when she and a new artist friend, Patrick Flammia, brought together a congenial group of art lovers to create a summer festival of the arts.   While the summer festival idea was brewing, Sue and Pat were privately courting.  Citizen’s Council for the Arts (CCA) emerged from the meetings full-blown and Sue and Pat came forth as a couple.  Soon married, they continued to support, encourage and raise Art on the Green, their beloved offspring, from its infancy to the very end of both their lives.

Sue had a general’s sense of mission – to celebrate and to share Art, in the broadest interpretation of the word.  Fine arts for sale in the juried show, watercolors and drawings on the clothesline, booths for artists and craftsmen, music and dance on the stage, a concrete quilt in front of the bandstand for little and big kids to dance and cavort to the music. Sue equated Art of all kinds with capital-J Joy.

 Volunteers have always provided the quiet strength of Art on the Green. Sue had a gift for recruiting new volunteers and connecting them with the projects of their choice. Sue was selfless in her efforts to bring art of all kinds into the lives of others, with a special niche in her heart for children.

Sue was a visionary, always thinking of new ways to create, appreciate, and celebrate Art. We have Sue to thank for Art Shop, during which thousands of kids have enjoyed a week of art work and play, for the Corner Art Gallery at North Idaho College, and for countless seminars and educational projects she initiated over the years.

How fortunate we are to have known and loved Sue and Pat Flammia.  Although we may never get used to life without them, we will always be grateful for Art on the Green, which would not be here without them. May this festival of art carry on the joy and magic Sue and Pat brought to us all.

Mary Lou Reed
July, 2016