About:
I am a San Diego native, Chicana artist, mother, maker, Climate Action Steward, and lifelong learner. I grew up in Old Town near the San Diego River, State Historic Park, shorelines, and beaches. My family's relationship with this broader region extends across generations—from my father's agricultural work growing crops in Loreto, Baja California Sur, to my maternal grandfather's journey from San Vicente, Panindícuaro, Michoacán, to the Escondido region as a contracted Bracero.
Land, water, food, labor, craftsmanship, and resourcefulness were never entirely abstract subjects to me. They were part of family life. Conversations about agriculture, watersheds, and how natural resources sustain people have always felt natural.
In 2021, I returned home to San Diego to help my mother through the loss of her best friend, Mi Papa. My mother continues to be a treasured source of inspiration, sharing with me a love and respect for music, artesanía, craftsmanship, plants, food, and ancestral knowledge.
Becoming a mother myself deepened those connections. Raising two beautiful souls has made me even more passionate about creating art, places, and opportunities that uplift communities and leave something meaningful for those who come after us.
Biodiversity to Community
My family's relationship with land and agriculture helped lead me toward Biology, with an emphasis in biodiversity, at Humboldt State University. My professional path eventually moved toward art, technology, and community work, but my fascination with living systems never left.
I later became a Certified Installer through Greywater Action for Sustainable Water Culture, studied Kumeyaay Ethnobotany, Arts & Culture through Cuyamaca College, and became a UC Climate Action Corps Climate Action Steward while volunteering with Mundo Gardens.
Today, I continue contributing to regenerative cultural, environmental, public-art, and community work on unceded Kumeyaay land. I remain grateful for opportunities to learn from people and communities whose knowledge and stewardship long precede my own.
Soil Food Web & Collective Genius
In 2019, I attended a Concept Design Academy workshop with artist Yusuke Kozaki that left an unexpected and lasting impression on me. I remember learning that Pokémon Go had reached 50 million users in just 19 days.
The scale and speed fascinated me—not simply because of the technology, but because it demonstrated the extraordinary power of networks: individual people connecting and becoming part of something much larger.
It immediately reminded me of another powerful network—the soil food web.
Beneath our feet, fungi, microorganisms, roots, water, nutrients, and countless living organisms form relationships and exchange resources that allow a larger ecosystem to thrive. Much of this work is invisible, yet everything is interconnected.
I began thinking about communities in much the same way.
Artists, elders, youth, craftspeople, scientists, educators, gardeners, builders, organizers, families, and neighbors each carry different knowledge. When those experiences are respected, shared, and connected, individual knowledge can become collective genius.
That connection has stayed with me. From biodiversity and technology to public art, watersheds, environmental stewardship, and community organizing, I increasingly see the same lesson:
Healthy systems depend upon relationships, diversity, reciprocity, and exchange.
Art, Technology & a Quest to Learn
My path as an artist has never been linear.
While working at Walt Disney Feature Animation and later DreamWorks Animation, I sought artistic training during lunches, evenings, and whenever an opportunity became available.
That curiosity led me to learn from artists including Glenn Vilppu, Karl Gnass, Mark McDonnell, Ron Pekar, Bob Kato, Randy Haycock, Rey Bustos, Victor Ochoa, Tina Wimer, and others. I also pursued training through the Escuelita de Aztlán, Brown Image Chicano Park Project, The Animation Guild, Concept Design Academy, independent studios, and community colleges throughout Southern California.
My studies and work have crossed drawing and painting, animation, multimedia, technology, public art, fabrication, construction, ethnobotany, environmental stewardship, and cultural arts.
Above all, I remain eager to learn from people who are masters of their craft—and especially artists who use storytelling to confront difficult histories, create social awareness, celebrate culture, and reveal human truths.
I find inspiration in Artemisia Gentileschi's fearless storytelling; Griz & Norm's generosity in sharing their craft and artistic-parenting journey; and Jorge R. Gutiérrez and Sandra Equihua's vibrant celebration of culture through El Tigre, The Book of Life, and Maya and the Three.
They remind me that art can do more than make something beautiful. It can preserve memory, confront injustice, celebrate identity, teach, heal, and create spaces where people recognize themselves and one another.
Art is Life
My practice today moves between public art, community engagement, environmental stewardship, fabrication, education, project management, and storytelling.
The San Diego River, our beaches and shorelines, Balboa Park's biodiversity, Chicano Park's murals and cultural legacy, and communities on both sides of our border continue to influence how I understand my responsibility as an artist and neighbor.
I am constantly learning, and I hope I always will be.
Like the soil food web, I believe healthy communities depend upon diversity, relationships, reciprocity, and exchange. What interests me most is what becomes possible when we connect people, knowledge, culture, creativity, and place—and help collective ideas become something tangible.
Always looking to elevate what I love, I hope to continue contributing wherever my skills can complement the people already doing the work.
Like Bruce Lee, above all, I'm “actualizing myself to be an artist of life.”
Salud! Wish you well!
Christina Castaneda Gonzalez Bambino
