Marcelle Foxley Roemmich grew up in the Matanuska Valley in Palmer, Alaska. Though she started life nestled in the mountains of the valley, she has always loved the ocean. As a child, she traveled to Southeast Alaska every summer where she would spend her days on the ocean: swimming in the frigid seawater, pulling up crab pots, exploring small islands from a skiff, and discovering the diverse, marine creatures living in the tidal pools. The awe-inspiring, adventurous summers on Admiralty Island were influential to her sense of identity and well-being as well as catalyzing the aesthetics for her art.
As she grew older, her love for the Alaskan waters also progressed. She landed her first job as a deckhand in the quirky, yet quaint little town of Whittier, Alaska. She attended Montana State University, pursued a degree in Art Education during the winter months and returned to Whittier each summer to work on boats. While in Whittier, she became enamored with working on saltwater and sharing that marine love-affair with people who came from all over the world--- just to get a small taste of the splendor she reveled in daily. In 2014, she achieved her first job as a boat captain. Ever since, she has worked captaining vessels each summer and taking winter sabbaticals to focus on creating her art.
Her grandfather, a commercial fisherman, left a large stack of nautical charts in the rafters of a shed on his property on Admiralty Island, just outside of Juneau. Marcelle’s uncle, a commercial fisherman himself, gifted her these antique charts. What better to do with unique, weathered charts then paint on them?! She was captivated with exploring numerous artistic techniques to portray different marine and terrestrial species, also planes, on nautical and aeronautical charts, and topographical maps. She now has an extensive collection of charts and maps from throughout Alaska gifted to her from various people pleased to get rid of “old clutter.” Typically, she paints marine life, animals, boats, or planes geographically specific to her charts.
Marcelle is inspired by her maritime influence daily working as a captain for Major Marine Tours in Resurrection Bay, out of Seward, Alaska. Each day on the water is unique. You never know what you might find out there on any given day. She never tires of the views and revelations on the water or the exhilaration that surrounds herself and others while taking her guests out on the boat and watching them become enthralled with the ocean, too!
