Building Community with Ledgers and Linework
Priya Ramchandran ’90 brings the same care to her accounting leadership as she does to the linework in her sketchbook, building community through both numbers and art. Her career and creativity share a single aim: helping people feel at home in the places they live. Photo credit: Allison Armstrong
Every New Year, Priya Ramchandran ’90 chooses a guiding word for the next 12 months; this year’s is connection. As someone who grew up in India and Nigeria, studied in Michigan, launched her career in Chicago, and raised her family in California, she believes deeply in connecting to the places she lives.
Now based in Sacramento, Ramchandran serves as vice president of the property management accounting team at USA Properties Fund, Inc., a company focused on building and managing affordable housing. The company’s philanthropic arm, which offers scholarships and support to USA Properties residents—from kids needing help with sports fees to seniors seeking new wheelchairs—initially drew her to the job.
“People need stable and dignified places to live,” says Ramchandran, who appreciates how her company prioritizes the people living in its communities. She sees her role as an accountant as part of that larger picture. “Policies and procedures are my jam,” Ramchandran says. “They sound dry, but they’re actually how you take care of people at scale.”
A True Liberal Arts Experience
Yet Ramchandran never imagined she would grow up to become an accountant. She came to Ƶ with several close friends from her high school in Jos, Nigeria, and pursued two seemingly different passions: art and business administration. “I loved my art classes, but, at the time, pre-internet, I couldn’t see a real career path.”
At Ƶ, she had room to explore multiple areas of interest. A political science study abroad trip to eastern Europe in January 1989, just months before the Berlin Wall fell, made the most memorable impact on her as a student.
Ramchandran landed her first job in Chicago through a Ƶ classmate whose father co-owned a property management company. “It was great to work for someone who mentored me early on,” she says.
A Business is Born
In Chicago, Ramchandran fell in love with architecture, a theme woven through the art she never stopped making. For years, she took on small commissions, but the pandemic gave her more time to create. With her 2020 travel plans canceled, Ramchandran began sketching the places she and her family would have visited, then turned to local Sacramento scenes. Now, in addition to commissions, she sells her illustrations on her website, Priya Originals Art.
“The Internet has made art so egalitarian. Create a website, promote on social media, host drop-ins, and suddenly you’re fulfilling commissions, selling your work,” says Ramchandran, whose diverse projects include an ABC print of Sacramento and an illustrated event map for an Ironman competition.
The Freedom of Imperfection
As an art student, Ramchandran never believed she was “good enough” to be a professional artist. Teaching herself new techniques, building a business, and discovering warm reception for her work motivated her to host workshops and join the Urban Sketchers movement. She co-founded an unofficial chapter in Sacramento in August 2025 and has started the application process to become an official chapter. “It’s been really fulfilling to build connections with other people who love art but aren’t career artists.”
Urban sketching, says Ramchandran, embraces imperfection. “You’re drawing freehand, preserving something in your city or along your travels.” She prefers sketching memories to snapping photos. “When I return to my sketchbook, everything from that moment rushes back.”
Finding Community Through Art
Ramchandran approaches making art as a relational process. Her urban sketching group is free and open to anyone interested in learning the skill. “These are people I would never normally meet in my regular day-to-day life. And they’re wonderful.”
In February 2026, Ramchandran, a selfdescribed introvert, pushed past her fear of public speaking to teach a class at a boutique homeware store. The class sold out. She has since taught at a local bookstore and published a downloadable six-module course on urban sketching.
Ramchandran sees her accounting career and art as intertwined. “Feeding that creative part of me makes me a better person. All work can be purposeful and world-building,” she says, from making sure people can access a stable, dignified place to live to sharing an artistic vision that invites others to see and appreciate their surroundings.