Art Walk Edmonds: Maria Coryell-Martin

Maria Coryell-Martin Artist Statement Each painting is a window to a specific place and time around the ever-changing marine landscape of Port Townsend. Through art created during two residencies—one aboard the Port Townsend-Coupeville ferry in fall 2025, and another at Fort Worden through Centrum in spring 2026—I explore how the Salish Sea defines our region through its shifting light and atmosphere. In the field, I sketch with ink and watercolor to build a “palette of place,” a vocabulary of color, climate, and stories. There’s an immediacy and urgency to field sketching that I love: the broad brushstrokes, the rain sometimes falling on my paper, and the distillation of the landscape's essential elements through watercolor. In turn, this fieldwork becomes the basis for studio paintings and a chance to revisit and refine my vision as it was captured in the moment. I hope my art inspires you to cultivate a deeper appreciation for our changing marine landscape, to see the familiar in a new light, and to seek adventures close to home. Artist Bio Maria Coryell-Martin is an expeditionary artist, continuing the tradition of traveling artists as naturalists and educators. Upon graduating from Carleton College in 2004, she embarked on a year-long Watson Fellowship to explore remote landscapes through art. This experience sparked a resolve to continue working as an expeditionary artist, focusing on polar and glacier science, and to inspire environmental awareness in audiences of all ages. Maria’s travels have brought her face-to-face with polar bears, leopard seals, emperor penguins, and narwhals. Maria’s field work becomes the foundation for developing art and stories in her studio to cultivate care and curiosity for the world around us. Inspired by her experiences making art in rugged, remote areas, Maria developed her own expedition-ready tools for sketching and painting and shares them with the world at arttoolkit.com. Learn more about Maria at…