Kim Smith draws on over twenty years experience as an interior and garden
designer. Established in 1985, Kim Smith Designs works in collaboration with
clientele to create highly individualized, livable spaces. She combines the
classic and the modern, the elegant and the playful, and utilizes eastern and
western cultural influences to further develop and refine design projects.
Her love of textiles drew her to interior design, and
passion for flowers to garden design.
As a young child, Kim’s family moved nearly every year—from North
Carolina to homes in New York, California, Florida and Massachusetts. Sharing
her avid interest in gardens, Kim’s mom regularly took her children on
excursions to public parks and scenic landscapes. She has cherished memories
of picnicking with her family in the Japanese Garden at the Huntington Botanical
Gardens in San Marino, and vivid recollections of the fabulously fragrant lilacs
at Highland Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, in Rochester, New York.
Kim attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Massachusetts College
of Art, and while a student established her couture clothing business.
She sold her dresses, hats, and swimsuits in New York City at Bergdorf
Goodman, Henri Bendel, and shops in the Village, and created one-of-a-kind
wedding dresses for a select group of clients. Kim branched into costume design
for the New Erlich Theatre in Boston and rock music videos, which led to film
and television set design,
including the Steve Martin film
Housesitter and the television series
Against
the Law.
Kim’s business shifted to working with commercial and residential
clients to design and renovate their homes, businesses and gardens.
Kim, her husband Tom, and their children moved from Boston’s South End to Gloucester,
the historic working port town on Boston’s North Shore. They purchased
a ramshackle 1851 Greek Revival home overlooking Gloucester Harbor.
Realizing that the practical experience gained from creating their garden would be useful
to gardeners with similar objectives,
Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! began
to take form.
Like many gardening books that have come before,
Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! was
written over a period of several years. Through planning and planting, writing,
painting and photographing, observing intimately the natural world found in
a garden, Kim has become a committed conservationist. She currently writes
and photographs a column on garden design with a focus on planting native flora
to attract native fauna. Kim is preparing a unique library exhibit about Monarch
butterflies, integrating photography and text.
Oh Garden of Fresh
Possibilities!, her first book, combines her passions for horticulture,
writing, painting and poetry.
“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only
what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught.” ~
Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist.
