Daily Inspiration: Meet Rachael Marshall

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachael Marshall.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been creative my whole life — I danced, made music, painted, and explored different art forms growing up. But everything really came together once I moved to Arizona and got involved with Cultural Coalition about five years ago.

That’s where I learned traditional mask-making, community performance, and how to turn my creativity into something that connects with people. Since then, I’ve been developing my masks, digital art, and performance work through their guidance and through the opportunities they’ve given me at festivals, parades, and community events.

So my path has been a mix of lifelong creativity, discovering the right mentors, and finding a cultural arts community that helped me grow into the artist I am today.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road, but the challenges shaped me. I grew up dealing with partial hearing loss, so communication and learning often meant relying on observation, rhythm, and body language. I also experienced something known as musical ear syndrome — my brain constantly created internal music. My teachers noticed it long before I ever talked about it.

Those experiences ended up shaping my entire artistic path. Being deaf for so long made me watch movement more closely, feel rhythm through my body, and express myself visually. The constant inner music gave me a natural sense of timing, flow, and storytelling that shows up in everything I create — from mask-making to performance to the way I move.

As I got older, natural medicine became an important part of my life, but not in shaping my art. It helped me understand myself, my body, and my intuition more clearly — but my creativity came from the way I’ve always experienced the world through rhythm, sensation, and inner sound.

Finding Cultural Coalition was another major turning point. Their mentorship gave me the technical skills, cultural grounding, and community support to turn those natural abilities into real artistic work.

So no, it hasn’t been a straight line. But every challenge — especially losing my hearing and learning to perceive the world differently — ended up giving me strengths I still use in my art today.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in sculpting masks from clay and bringing them to life through performance. My work is very rooted in cultural arts — creating masks, painting and finishing them, and then performing in festivals, parades, and community events throughout the Phoenix area.

I’ve trained with Cultural Coalition for five years as an artist intern, which has given me hands-on experience with traditional mask-making, procession performance, and community-based art projects. Through that work, I’ve also supported several public art pieces. I helped with the digital design for the new South Mountain light rail station installation, and I contributed digital concepts for a sidewalk project that is still in progress.

Outside of Cultural Coalition, I create my own digital artwork. One of my designs was selected and installed on a 20-by-20-foot electrical box in Peoria, which was an incredible experience. I also placed second and third in the Fine Art Competition at the Arizona State Fair, which I’m very proud of.

What sets me apart is the combination of sculpture, cultural performance, digital design, and the way I merge my natural sense of rhythm and movement with mask work. My background in feeling rhythm internally — long before I could hear fully — gives my performance style a unique flow and presence.

Overall, I’m proud of the work I do because it connects art with community, culture, storytelling, and public spaces.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
My favorite childhood memory is the Christmas I received my first instrument — an electric keyboard. I didn’t know how to play anything at the time, but I immediately became fascinated with the sounds. I would press one key at a time just to hear the tone, not even thinking about rhythm yet — I just wanted to understand what each sound felt like.

I spent hours experimenting, realizing that certain notes matched songs I already carried in my head. Little by little I figured out how to play simple melodies just by listening and finding the sound. That keyboard was the first time I understood that I could translate the music I felt internally into something physical, and it became a huge part of how I connected with creativity growing up.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachael_marshalls_art?igsh=MTFvcnVrMWZkMXJrNA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CXUs5kBwC/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachael-marshall-b18773144?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Image Credits
None