The Art Markers Project

The Art Markers project was installed in Port Townsend in 2021 as a wayfinding system, funded by a matching grant from ArtsWA through the Washington State Legislature, and by cash and in-kind matching donations. Designed by artist Jonah Trople, the project serves to identify downtown, uptown and Fort Worden as places where creative activity happens. The project also includes a website and trail markers designed as part of the wayfinding system, connecting the historic districts and Fort Worden State Park within our state-designated Creative District. 

Over the years, the Port Townsend community response to these Art Markers has been one of mixed emotions, including acceptance and interest, outright disapproval, and various kinds of defacement. In the summer of 2024, one Art Marker was dramatically damaged. Following that incident, the Creative District began a listening series, holding public conversations both planned and informal to gain community guidance and rechart the course of this project. Future steps will be announced in 2025.

About the Artist

The Creative District Subcommittee received eight diverse and impressive proposals for this project. After extensive review, regional artist Jonah Trople was chosen for the commission in 2021.

Jonah Trople is a multidisciplinary artist, sculptor, designer, and sign maker. His work is decidedly layered; a bold, playful and deceptively simple aesthetic weaves together the ideas of magic and memory with themes of the human condition and place. Through use of symbols, his visual vocabulary tells a story that invokes a sense of wonder and mystery, referring to something ancient and ancestral.

At the time of the project launch, Trople was living and working in the traditional territory of S’Klallam peoples, in Port Townsend, Washington, on the shore of the Salish Sea. He now lives on the Big Island of Hawai’i, where his ongoing work employs the use of natural materials.

While Trople’s professional sign work can be found nationally—he has fabricated and installed large-scale creations for clients such as Google and Whole Foods—his attention since starting a family has been more community-oriented. Trople has worked with the Jefferson County Historical Society, numerous clients along Water Street, and has exhibited at the Port Townsend School of the Arts.

About the Art Markers

For the Art Markers project, Trople designed and created five pillars that are contemporary and rustic at the same time. Each nearly seven feet tall, the works are made of reclaimed fir that was regionally sourced and locally milled. The fir is sealed, white-washed, painted, and weather-rated in coastal conditions for 20 years or more.

Using wood for these pillars deepens the symbolic relationship between the sculptures and their placement. The art markers perhaps remind viewers of nearby pier pilings downtown, while also speaking to the marine trades and wooden boat culture. With time, like any object exposed to the elements, they will collect a natural patina. This will allow these pillars to “truly become themselves,” in the words of the artist.

There are two markers located Downtown (Tyler Street Plaza and Washington/Monroe), two markers located Uptown (adjacent to the Port Townsend Public Library and at Lawrence/Tyler streets), and one placed near the entrance to Fort Worden State Park. There are also more than 60 trail signs threading pedestrians and cyclists through Uptown to Fort Worden. The signs begin in the Uptown commercial historic district along F Street, and lead to the Fort and back.