Rachel Rothberg: Bird painter, tattoo artist

Why do you pull so much from the natural world into your art?

I actually started school wanting to do ecology, and I really wanted to be an ornithologist and study birds. I ended up being a painting major, but I brought a lot of that ecological influence.

The Dutch master painters in the 1800s have always been painting dead birds. We’ve always been thinking about birds in that way throughout history. But I feel like the way that I approach it is bringing this empathy to the birds, rather than like, ‘Here’s this trophy that I caught while I was hunting or something.’

Can you explain the bird memorials you create?

I’m a bird watcher also, and I think that whenever I come across a dead bird, I always feel this drive to see it as an individual and to memorialize it.

I think about the loss and the scale of how many birds we’re losing, and I really want to make a statement about that. In order to care about the great loss of life and the big scale of these ecological catastrophes, you first have to care about the birds as individuals.

I want to provide a space for people to be face-to-face with these large dead birds in my paintings — and really process their own feelings of grief or really sit with these birds.

What’s the process for you?

I start with a physical bird that I find. I normally move the birds that I find to a more natural setting, to let them return to nature. I bring in native plants and cultivated plants, and I place them around the bird. I make this really lovely, reverent burial. 

Then, I photograph it. I move any element of the composition to where I want it to be and then I project that image onto a canvas that’s really big. 

I recreate the same image in a very meticulous and loving and meditative process.

Can you tell me more about your tattooing?

I started tattooing full time after graduating. Tattooing allowed me to work on my own creative projects. I was able to work with people who really like birds: A lot of people want bird tattoos, which is super cool for me. 

Tattooing allows me to have the financial stability to also paint. It turns out, more people are in the market for pictures on their body than pictures in the houses that they don’t own, because nobody can buy a house anymore.

Where can people see your art?

I have all these big, 6-foot paintings that are hard to display. There’s no place where it’s always visible to the public, but they are going to show some of my paintings in the Mount Baker Theater. The Whatcom Symphony Orchestra is putting on a concert at the Mount Baker Theater in March; one of the movements that they’re doing samples bird songs.