In 1973, she earned an MFA in Painting with Honours at the San Francisco Art Institute under Fred Martin,[7] while attending Graduate Seminars at UC Berkeley with Robert Hudson and Peter Plagens.

[3] In 1987, Bergman addressed the growing urgency of plastic recycling in the Sea of Clouds What Can I Do, presented at Santa Barbara Contemporary Art Forum.

An immersive installation filled the entire gallery space with seven dumpsters full of non-biodegradable waste plastic garbage gathered from four miles of Santa Barbara's Pacific Ocean coastline over the course of three or four months.

[9] The installation included painted wall murals, sound, a video written and shot by the artist, photography, a meditation circle, writing, and a prayer sticks altar with interactive participation of visitors to the exhibition.

[6] The installation resembled a post-nuclear ash site: floors were littered with sprawling piles of plastic which hung from the ceiling, sprinkled with flour.

Fishback and Erik Bowers (Bergman's son) of TEWA Technology developed the project and materials, diverting 27% of all waste from landfill to the highway.

In Blood, Milk, Water, scholar Dr. Wendy Steiner explains, "Her name itself represents that sort of shift - from Cheryl Bowers to Ciel Bergman - becoming a landscape of 'sky' and' mountain' that is a typical background in her paintings.