Contact Kim Graham at kimsculptor (at) gmail (dot) com. For information about Kim’s Weta Legs digitigrade leg extensions, see the April 2010 Coilhouse interview with Kim Graham, or use the Weta Workshop contact form.

The daughter of a Montana sawyer (lumberjack), Kim began her art career in 1984 as a graphics artist for Austin game company Steve Jackson Games. She moved to Seattle, Washington in 1985. For 12 years, while working as a housekeeper, she painstakingly taught herself every part of her craft: painting, airbrush, ceramics, moldmaking, plastics casting, and steel fabrication. In 1997 she became a full-time artist, sculpting many pieces for gaming and entertainment companies such as Wizards of the Coast. The Kim Graham Studios online gallery shows some of her work.

Much technical information about molds and casting was obscure or difficult to find, so Kim had to rediscover it independently — a process she compares to learning how to build a toaster by looking at toast. Since developing her own techniques, Kim has taught her knowledge freely to every willing student, through classes, volunteer projects, and now this SilkMermaid blog.

Kim sculpts in a wide variety of media and sizes, ranging from fired clay figuratives to 22-foot dragons. In recent years she has moved away from her special effects/fantasy-based molded fiberglass work to focus on fine art sculptures: beautiful Art Nouveau-inspired plaques, busts, portraits, and even funerary urns for pets. Her current interest is large-scale architectural pieces. She seeks the holy grail of sculpting media, a nontoxic outdoor material, inexpensive to make, reasonably lightweight, and strong enough to support very large sculptures. After seven years of tests, she believes she is very close to finding it. SilkMermaid.com chronicles her ongoing tests.

Kim Graham at work on the Red Silk Mermaid

“In a world of uniform commercially available products, I still love the old world craftsmanship, the hand-built, one-of-a-kind pieces,” Kim says. “There is a joy in creating a sculpture that is not intended for reproduction. You are liberated from the constraints of ‘That will be too hard to copy’ and ‘We must make that figure more cost-effective.’ The only imperative is to make it beautiful — classical — to add all the subtle touches and embellishments that will elevate it above the ordinary.”