Raymond Wiger was born in Washington, D.C. in 1960 and received his education in parochial and public schools and at the University of Maryland. From 1978 until 1992, he spent part of each year working at the Smithsonian Institution or the Library of Congress, and from 1982 through 1996 a part of each year working as a park ranger in National Parks across the United States. Every few years he travels to the equatorial zones of South America to collect insect specimens for universities and museums. Raymond Wiger's training and study in art is derived from his years of work at the Smithsonian Institution, and since the early 1980's it has been in the quiet moments and solitude of the National Parks where he has found the most conducive environment for his artistic and writing pursuits.

Raymond Wiger first started working in wire mesh as a sculpting material in the late 1980's. Beginning with screen left over from repairing a window in a cabin in a national park, after six months discovered a more workable material with the same properties while sitting in front of a fireplace in Seattle, Washington. While reading the Inferno of Dante, the realization came that the type of material that would allow him to fully examine wire mesh as a medium in sculpting stood between himself and the fire. He uses no models or photographs from which to work, but relies for reference on a background of anatomical studies at the anthropology and art departments of the Smithsonian.

He resides in Taos, New Mexico and continues to devote time each year to the National Parks working as a volunteer.