Hi there! I’m Rachael Shores. I am living in Erlangen, Germany as a transplant from the US, originally born in Minnesota. One December day in 2016 my husband and I asked each other what was next in our life. All our friends were buying houses and having kids. Within days we decided to quit our jobs/sell my massage business, sell our two Subarus, sell all our things and move to Europe and try to live in a foreign land. We chose Germany because my hubby’s engineering degree seemed like the most logical fit. This was a dream I had never even considered a possibility. A year later, I get to live out all my wildest dreams, I’m traveling with this great guy I’m married to, and I’m an artist!
I began training myself to be an artist when I was 4 years old. When I was 16 I was accepted into and attended an arts high school in Golden Valley, MN. Art has been a way to express myself when I couldn’t find the words. I want to capture the emotion of a place and remind people of the joy and beauty that is within them and this world. I paint in reverence of this beautiful creation. My palette is bright and vibrant and almost impossible for me to tone down. I “speak” in a variety of styles: surreal vision paintings, storybook style illustrations, realistic pet and people portraits, plein air of my travels, and almost exclusively in watercolor, my passion.
I had 3 dreams in high school:
- travel the world
- Get married and live in a log cabin.
- Be an artist.
I have traveled the world as well as road tripped around the United States. I worked odd jobs like being a snowboard instructor, a cake decorator, and a salmon seiner in Alaska. I got to cocktail waitress on Bourbon St. in New Orleans and did a fair amount of manual labor like housekeeping, factory work, and CNA jobs. Every job I did was to pay for adventure and travels. In the end I visited 34 countries and all 7 continents within 6 years and an extra bonus, I hiked half the Appalachian Trail. I finished the Appalachian Trail in 2008.
I met my husband in 2006, in Antarctica, where we spent the winter – 6 months – working together. In 2009 we married and moved to Asheville, North Carolina where he went to college as a Mechatronic Engineer and I became a licensed massage therapist. After college we lived in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Roanoke. It seems like we were settling into the American life until we realized we both share the same adventurous dream. One day I’ll have that log cabin, maybe as my little art studio.
