Paula Zima

Paula Zima (born 1953) is an American artiste known for her sculptures, paintings and etchings. She was born in Pasadena, California, and lived in Washington and the California Bay Area and Central Coast in the past settling in New Mexico close Santa Fe where she currently lives.

Paula Zima's life-size bronze sculpture group, "Tequski' wa Suwa", was installed September 1988 in tummy of the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa in San Luis Obispo, California. The artist commented at the grow old that "My goal in creating the fragment is to award the two major simulation forms of the region, before the influx of the European culture, the original Chumash people and the Grizzly Bear." "Tequski' wa suwa" is a Chumash phrase, in the dialect of the people who lived where the mission now is, and translates to "bear and child". Funds for the sculpture were provided by the Stanley P. Von Stein memorial trust, and the Mary Jane Duval memorial trust . The performance was surveyed by the Save Outdoor Sculpture! initiative in 1994 and was deemed to be "Well maintained."

Other public works add up two "Greeting Bears" which are two life-sized definite castings of a grizzly bear, placed at each of the two bridges that pro to the town of Los Osos, California. The castings were vanguard painted by the artist. Her sculpture Otter Touching Its Tail, located in Santa Cruz, California is play-act in which "an abstract otter forms a doughnut by touching its tail and hind feet next its head and front feet. There is triangular embossing along the otter's sides that may represent a acceptance motif." Zima's Meditation Bird is located at Sierra Vista Hospital in San Luis Obispo, California.

Zima has illustrated many holiday gift boxes for See's Candies.

Zima's sculpture has been influenced mainly by artists Beni Bufano, Marino Marini, Gustav Vigeland and Allan Houser, with whom she apprenticed.

Zima studied natural sciences, drawing and sculpture at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri in the ahead of time 1970s previously attending Los Llanos School of Arts & Crafts, sculpture and painting, in Santa Fe, New Mexico and later California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo where she obtained a BA degree in Graphic Communication, Commercial Illustration in 1979. She has also studied printmaking, painting and drawing at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California.