Phil Flash, A Mercer Island Legend

There is a multimedia artwork hanging in Phil Flash’s vestibule called “Dot Com Culture.” It contains a CD, DVD and a computer motherboard and painted representations of other internal parts of a computer, overlaid with a network that is connected to the internal parts by colorful alligator clips. “I made a series of 9 of these, representing the connections of today’s society to our dot com culture,” said Flash. “I’m not your average boat and barn painter…I like to be a little more creative than that.”

Such a perceptive outlook on life in the Seattle area would be expected from a young artist who has grown up in this technology-rich era; but the man creating these modern artworks is actually 93 years old.

“Other than a bit of glaucoma in my eyes, I’m pretty healthy,” said Flash. “I’m not planning on going anyplace yet…not immediately, anyway.”

Born in Victoria, British Columbia, Flash’s family emigrated to Seattle when he was a toddler, and he grew up selling Liberty Magazines for 5 cents each to overcome his innate shyness. After attending Broadway High School, during WWII, Flash worked at the Harbor Island Shipyards building seaplane tender ships that were maintenance depots for those planes, as well as ocean-going mine sweepers.

“After the war, there were a number of young Jewish people moving to Seattle, so Temple De Hirsh Sinai had youth groups for people to socialize and meet other young Jewish people,” he said. “I met a nice young lady there, Claire Barkey, in 1949 who was from the Isle of Rhodes, and we were married for over 30 years, and had two children, Cynthia and Edward.”

Flash went to work for Boeing on the swing shift so that he could study architecture and industrial design during the day at UW. “I worked into being an ergonomic engineer, where I dealt with the interface between man and machine,” he said. “I spent 40 years at Boeing, it was a good career.”

 Flash moved his family to Mercer Island because he wanted to be between relatives on the south and north ends of King County. His sister in law found them a lot on Mercer Island, where Northwest Contemporary architect Ralph Anderson designed the family a sizable home, built in 1964. Always a ‘concerned citizen,’ Flash started picking up trash alongside the sidewalks and roads when he’d go for daily walks with his wife. “So I got recognized for keeping Mercer Island clean when they made me their first Citizen of the Year,” he said. “But I kept tabs on everything by going to all the City Council meetings, too.” Phil Flash is also a founding member of the Mercer Island Historical Society, attended Probus, MIVAL and Mercer Island Rotary Club, and was a constant figure at the monthly Mercer Island Chamber of Commerce luncheons. Flash also joined the Northwest Watercolor Society, and the Puget Sound Group of Northwest Painters.

After retiring from Boeing in 1988, Flash, who had been drawing and painting in his spare time since he was a child, decided to focus more on his abstract art work. He developed a style called “Dynaism” which involved painting with strong primary colors and energetic brushstrokes on canvases large and small. His work has been shown at the Seattle Art Museum’s Northwest Annual Show, the Frye Art Museum, the Bellevue Art Museum and at Pogatcha Restaurant in Bellevue. His work also hangs in various public art collections, such as the Seattle Public Library and the Kline Galland Home. “I try to create something different, that reflects today’s energy and the way people communicate in the Northwest,” he said. “For example, these paintings use the symbols for “kisses and hugs”  (X and 0) that people use when writing each other emails that they used to use at the end of letters.”

This past Spring, Flash fell and broke three ribs, and was moved into The Summit, a Jewish retirement facility in Seattle. “Like most retirement places, there’s a majority of ladies living here”, Flash said. “But I’m not complaining.”

Flash remains active in the Mercer Island Historical Society, which has offices at City Hall and meets at the Community Center once a month.  “In 2004 we celebrated 50 years of preserving Mercer Island’s history,” he said. “We have 15 historical site markers around the Island such as the one that marks where there was an anti-aircraft battery (military installation) on the Southend, and West of the Community Center where there was search lights, and over on the Eastside, where there was a wooden bridge connecting the Island to Seattle.” Though he’s tapering off his involvement in the MI Historical Society, Flash contends that the group is small but will keep going long after he’s gone. “Jane Meyer Brahm is in the process of creating a new Mercer Island History book that is coming out next year, and Susan Blake has taken over the leadership, along with Sally Brown and Ed Rice who stay on top of things now…it makes me feel good that the historical society is in good hands.”