Kathi Bristow

My passion for art has always been a central part of my life. Once I could walk, I found that crayons were amazing instruments and would run the halls of my parent’s house, engrossed with the different colors that created ribbons on the walls. I continued drawing and added painting in oils and acrylics, as well as sculpture to my repertoire. My memories as a child in the mountains in the Lake Tahoe region, as well along the California coast, have motivated me to create vivid paintings of floral and fauna.

I reentered the academic world when my two sons were small, and took night classes at American River College, and was fortunate to have had wonderful teachers, among them Gary Pruner for oil and watercolor classes and Jim Kaneko for ceramics. I obtained my associate’s degree in fine art in 1989. During this time, I worked at odd jobs and then started my own mural business. Though it was short-lived, it was a great learning experience! I have created murals for schools and a few businesses, one being The Sacramento Zoo, and donated my time to create a mural in a treatment room for Shriners hospital in Sacramento. This led to a commission to create a mural for UC Davis Children’s Hospital. I was a volunteer art docent in the San Juan School District for over ten years at Albert Schweitzer Elementary School, teaching students about the masters, and creating art projects including painting and clay sculpture.

I have been a member of the Sacramento Fine Arts Center for over 30 years. I joined NCA in the early 1990s and served on the board for a few years as Hospitality chair. Some time passed and was inspired to work towards my bachelor’s degree and enrolled at Sacramento State University. I achieved my BA in Public History in 2009 and volunteered for over ten years at the Center for Sacramento History, helping catalogue collections. I retired in 2020 after working over twenty years as an analyst for the State of California from the Dept. of Water Resources where I worked with environmental scientists to help manage their projects that included salmon studies, the Delta smelt, and water quality. For me art is love; art is life!