When Kali Ruth Nerby says creativity runs in her blood, she means it.
Her great-great-great grandpa was a builder. Her great-great grandma was an artist. One of her grandmas was an artist. Her grandpa was a builder. Her dad was a builder and is a home designer. Nerby is married to a builder.
“I come from a long line of builders, designers, artists and doers,” she says.
Nerby continues the family legacy. She grew up painting and drawing. Thanks to a visit to Borders’ comic book section as a child with her dad, she became partial to the imagery, style and color schemes of classic comics. As a young adult, painting and drawing were a way to express herself.
“It was a way to navigate life, discover who I was, let go of feelings or embrace feelings I was running from,” she says. “Each piece is almost like a journal entry. If I don’t know what I feel, I start painting and by the time I’m done, my thoughts feel clear.”
She learned technical drawing while spending time on job sites with her designer-contractor father. She remembers “while other kids were selling lemonade, I was making extra cash drafting electrical and site plans in my dad’s office.”
Talent came naturally but she worked hard to develop skills. She studied architecture at Cosumnes River College and earned a bachelor’s degree in interior design at Sacramento State. She worked through school, interning and working for Ellis Architects. After graduation, she joined her dad’s business full time.
When her dad retired, he asked Nerby if she would take over. Pregnant with her first child, Nerby decided she’d rather be her own boss and struck out on her own, founding residential design firm KR Studio.
When daughter Ellie was born, Nerby was “so obsessed with her” that her plan to work fulltime while Ellie was in daycare changed. She decided to work a few days a week while completing various projects, from custom homes and multifamily housing to additions and remodels.
Along the way, art took a backseat. After her daughter’s birth, Nerby admits to “fighting going back into art.”
When her husband gifted her figure drawing classes for Christmas last year, she dived back in.
“I need (art) and I needed it in motherhood more than I had in a long time,” Nerby says.
Making her art public was another hurdle. She’d always found art a private endeavor, but something clicked when she joined the drawing class.
“I realized, if I don’t do something with (my art), I’ll be 80, drawing and not doing anything with it,” Nerby says. “Time is crazy. I’m going to blink and be here.”
One day she was at Pipeworks climbing gym. She marched up to the front desk and asked about showing her work. They checked her website and assigned a slot for August 2026.
That was fine with Nerby. Then the gym called and asked if she could take August 2025 instead. She scrambled and produced her first public art exhibition.
“It’s amazing having someone you don’t know look at your work and like it enough to buy it,” she says. “It’s not because they know you and like you as a person. It’s because they genuinely like your work.”
Now pregnant with her second daughter, Nerby plans to continue showing her artwork.
For information, visit kaliruthstudio.com.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
