Ann Fisk, 80, artist, activist, and a Rockport politician

“Mom’s motto was ‘Life is Art!’ She loved to find the quirky and colorful in everyday scenes and sometimes use a bit of artistic license to make her paintings convey what she saw,’’ said her daughter, Miranda, of Rockport. “I think for her, art was a comfort, an enjoyable discipline, and means of recording her travels and adventures.’’

But Mrs. Fisk, who died at 80 in her Rockport home Oct. 8 from complications of multiple myeloma, was passionate about more than art. She was the second woman ever to hold a seat on the Rockport Board of Selectmen. Colleagues and family said she was a tireless civic activist and a pioneering politician committed to community and the environment.

Born in Newton, she spent her earliest summers in Provincetown and winters in St. Augustine, Fla. She graduated from Ketterlinus High School in St. Augustine in 1947.

The family spent summers in Provincetown until 1940, when her father chose to relocate to Rockport. There the family set up a gallery in a small fishing shack on Bearskin Neck.

In Rockport, she met Charles Fisk of Cambridge, whom she married in 1950. After a brief period in California, during which she earned a bachelor’s degree in design at Stanford University, she returned to Rockport where she remained active in the community for more than a half-century.

Mrs. Fisk blended her love of art with her passion for community involvement. She, like her parents, was a member of the Rockport Art Association. She served as the organization’s director from 1983 to 1993. She also was involved in the Rockport Chamber Music Festival and the town’s annual Christmas pageant. In the late 1980s, Mrs. Fisk began leading tours, called “Traveling Paintbrush,’’ that took amateur and professional artists across the world to paint.

Although art was an important part her life, her family said her hard work and many successes in civic affairs were her true signature.

“Mom was nothing if not opinionated,’’ her daughter said. “She felt a strong sense of right and wrong, and if she cared deeply about something . . . she would put her all into it.’’

In 1967, her son, Josiah, observed, she “attracted attention, and raised eyebrows’’ when she won a seat on the town Board of Selectmen.

“Although she was something of a pioneer in the local political scene, I don’t think it occurred to me that she was doing anything unusual, because she never saw it as such,’’ her daughter said. “I think she just saw herself as a person who had an interest in the town, and the ‘second woman’ distinction was sort of incidental to her.’’

“She was truly engaged in local matters, much more so than most people,’’ said Wendell “Sandy’’ Jacques Jr., chairman of the Board of Selectmen. Jacques described Mrs. Fisk’s style as “pleasant, polite, and down-to-earth’’ but also “very direct’’ and with no mincing of words. “It was hard to argue with her,’’ he said, “because she was pretty much always on the mark.’’

Mrs. Fisk cared deeply about the environment. She was instrumental in creating the town “swap shop’’ where people could leave unwanted but usable items rather than throwing them away. Such sheds subsequently became standard in community dumps and transfer stations. Her passion for recycling was evident decades before waste prevention programs became popular.

Her commitment to recycling in Rockport was recognized in 2002 when a street was named after her. The street was on the way to the dump and, her daughter recalled, the humor of this distinction was not lost on Mrs. Fisk. “She was very proud of having the dump road, Ann Fisk Way, named for her,’’ her daughter said.

Another favorite cause was land conservation. Mrs. Fisk helped to raise money for the town to purchase Knowlton’s Field, land at the top of Pigeon Hill, and land near the town’s entrance along Nugent’s Stretch.

Mrs. Fisk was also credited for her role in helping the Rockport Public Library move to a new building in 1990.

Three years earlier, wealthy summer resident Franz Denghausen, a sculptor and poet, died and left behind $1 million to fund library improvements. But a dispute between the town and the Smithsonian Institution over who would inherit the $1 million held up the move.

Mrs. Fisk, according to family, was a key member of a campaign in support of the library. In 1990, Attorney General James Shannon brokered a settlement in which the Smithsonian agreed not to obstruct Rockport in its efforts to use the money to convert an empty school into a new library.

These efforts, family members say, were driven in part by her love of her community.

“I think Rockport always felt like home to her. She loved the people in the community,’’ her daughter said.

In addition to her son and daughter, Mrs. Fisk leaves her brother, Peter Lindenmuth of Boston. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Rockport. A reception will follow at the Rockport Community House, 58 Broadway, in Rockport.