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...