The Art Marker Project

The Port Townsend Creative District’s first project was creation of a wayfinding system to celebrate the Creative District by linking Downtown, Uptown, and Fort Worden State Park.

The Art Marker Project provides a creative way to connect the historic districts with Fort Worden through marketing, signage, and bike paths. The project was funded in part by a matching grant from ArtsWA through the Washington State Legislature, and matching donors. 

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

About the Artist

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, cosmic history, and place.

Through use of symbols and signifiers, Trople’s work illuminates a universal memory from the collective unconscious. 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 and practices aligned with the sacred land.

While Trople’s professional sign work can be found nationally—he has fabricated and installed large-scale creations for clients such as Google, Whole Foods, Metropolitan Market, and MOD Pizza—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 Sculptures

For the Art Market project, Jonah Trople designed and created five sculptures that are contemporary and rustic at the same time. Each nearly seven feet tall, the artworks 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 sculptures 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, the art markers will collect a natural patina. This will allow these sculptures to truly become themselves.

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. In addition, Trople created the logo for the Creative District, featuring an image of the five sculptures. 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.