An art studio floating on the Samish River

It is low tide on the Samish River. A man pauses at his cabin door to watch a bald eagle soaring overhead. Across the way, a venerable red barn, once used to store pea crops, leans into the tall summer grasses. A peacock displays his royal plumage by a steel ramp leading to a houseboat tied to the dock. This is the floating studio of northwest painter and sculptor Todd Horton.

Horton waves from his decommissioned houseboat on the river's edge of the tiny town of Edison. The artist has chosen to live and work in this extraordinarily beautiful farming community in the Skagit Valley. The area is known for its epicurean delights, artisan cheese, berries, oysters, crab and art galleries.

Stepping inside his cabin, one is transported to a world of creativity. Sculptures of owls and foxes greet the eye. They have been carved and fire-burnished from 2" x 4" wood scrap – some have glass heads. Chairs of several now deceased northwest artists – Clayton James, Bill Slater and Ted Jonsson – are arranged near the windows as if to provide posthumous council for Horton's musings, while on the kitchen counter a painting of the American naturalist Henry David Thoreau sits cleverly affixed to a metal tripod.

Much like Thoreau during his Walden days, Horton himself is living a bit off the grid.

''My life and career have become one. Down here on this river there is no real distinction." Horton finds it, "amazing what Thoreau was saying in the 1840s and how true it is now: encroaching civilization, his insights." His voice trails off.

Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emily Dickinson, among other great American writers, thinkers and poets, have informed the way Horton chooses to live.

"This group of people really laid the foundation for a lot of things that make American society lovely." There is something quite patriotic about Horton's contemplations as well as his intention to live in a less mediated way.

We climb a few steps to the upper level of his converted houseboat. At the top of the steps sits an easel holding a large painting. It represents an evening of uninterrupted life on the Samish river. Moonlight is a favorite theme of Horton's, perhaps because it is in the evenings that he creates much of his work. His paintings, whether depicting animals or landscapes, often include areas that have been intentionally blurred by brushstrokes. There is a sense of something fleeting, much like the light that moves across the Skagit Valley.

While he is not making art, Horton is thinking about art in his community. Along with fellow artist and sculptor Aarron Loveitt, he has been working on two events that have energized local art and artists. "The Blanchard Mountain Rendezvous," slated for October 15, and "Equinox," next March, are gatherings where local art comes together around 30 gallons of soup over a big fire, along with beer and cider. Artists, friends, collectors and community join in conversation, exchange ideas and sell art work. For each event, themes are chosen and artists whose work reflect these concepts are invited to participate. This year's Blanchard Mountain Rendezvous will be curated by Chloe Dye Sherpe from Sedro Woolley. These events feel as though they have grown out of the farmlands on which they are held.

As I step off Horton's river studio I have a question. Is there an idea, something you are really investigating?

"Yes,'' he says, "my deeper goal is to develop and debut my tidal and tree drawings".

Horton has been exploring natural mark making. The Tidal drawings are created from the ebb and flow of the tidal river waters and tree drawings are sketched from the movement of trees in the forest. Both series are generated from hand built devices. This body of work has become a central focus for him. He is asking the natural world "to make drawings".

It is late afternoon on the Samish River and I leave Horton knowing there is much to be said and much to be made from a life experienced on the banks of a river.