Bill joined the Canadian Army’s Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in April of 1963. He served in a wide variety of command and staff positions in Canada, the United States and overseas. In 1994 Bill organized and conducted a visit to a war zone in the former Yugoslavia for a group of artists from the Calgary area. His Regiment sponsored this event and it resulted in the production of a number of art pieces for the Regimental and National War Museum collections.
After retiring from the Regular Force in 1994 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he undertook the Bachelor of Fine Arts program, initially at the University of Alberta and then at the Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD). He graduated with distinction in 2000 with a major in painting.
He currently teaches painting and drawing courses for the Calgary Board of Education and maintains a studio painting practice.
Don Connolly is a well recognized Canadian aviation artist with work represented in a number of major museum collections including the Canada War and Aviation Museums in Ottawa, the RCAF Museum in Trenton, and in numerous provincial and military museums, both in Canada and the USA. His paintings have been seen frequently as cover paintings or illustrations in books and magazines such as Aviation History and Aviation Week & Space Technology.
He has been painting as a professional for over 25 years, and numbers his output of original (aviation) works as being “well over 2000". Prior to that time he served 15 years as a navigator, instructor and staff officer in the RCAF, resigning his commission as a Squadron Leader in 1966, to become a partner in opening and managing a chain of six bookstores and picture framing establishments in the Ottawa/Gatineau area, before resigning a dozen years later to answer the ultimate call to become a full time freelance professional artist.
He considers himself fortunate to have then teamed up with some co-operative commercial galleries, where he was permitted to work in a variety of styles and with subject matter ranging from land and cityscapes through portraiture, abstracts and sculpture. While he continues to do considerable work in these art forms, his passion for aviation inevitably led him into this field as well, and it now constitutes the larger part of his output.
Don has been one of the key figures in the formation and administration of the Canadian Aviation Artists Association, which was honoured by the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame in 2002 for its contributions to preserving the history of Canadian aviation. He is also a long time member of the American Society of Aviation Artists, and of the Canadian Aviation Historical Association.
He is a frequent contributor and prize winner at major shows in both the USA and Canada, and in 2003 was invited by the USAF Museum to display ten works in its first show of international aviation art, as the official representative for Canada.
He continues to work full time from his studio at his home in lake country, just north of Kingston, Ontario.
Artist Tag Kim is a prolific artist who studied fine art and commercial art in South Korea. Since arriving in Canada in 1976, his work has been exhibited in several galleries throughout western Canada. The range and scope of his work is shown in his portrayals of arctic scenery, scenic landscapes, still life, as well as his moving portraits. Tag painted the four "Milner panels" on The Military Museums Mural of Honour.
Tag Kim’s past works include paintings of several members of the 1987 Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers and the 1996 Oilers lithograph "Heading for the Top". In addition, his depiction of two winter Olympic sports (Biathlon and Freestyle Skiing) were included in the book “Games of the Ice and Snow”.
Tag Kim has also completed several portraits for the Alberta Legislature. These include portraits of former House Speakers Orin McPherson (1990) and Dr. David Carter 1993) and former Premier of Alberta Don Getty (1993).
In 1992, the County of Stony Plain chose Tag Kim to design and paint an historical wall mural called "Country Doctor". In 1993, the Edmonton Downtown Business Association’s Avenue of Nations undertook an urban revitalization project, which included a series of murals. Tag Kim’s "Ukrainian Festival" was the first mural of the series.
His most recent works include portraits of former Lieutenant Governor Gordon Towers (1996) and former Speaker Stanley Schumacher (1997) as well as a picture of Edmonton Oilers goaltender Curtis Joseph (1997) that was made into a special edition print. Tag Kim’s most recent works include a legacy mural of hall of fame hockey player Glenn Hall on the side of the Glenn Hall Centennial Arena for the Town of Stony Plain in the fall of 2008.
Paul Houle started out as an artist enrolled in the University of Guelph Fine Arts Program. After only one year he departed in pursuit of his passion for flying. Paul has been a commercial pilot since 1994 and in the last few years has revisited his art.
Paul has been published in books and has worked on private commissions. He has been involved in Michel Lavigne’s series of books featuring Canadian pilots, specifically, those that fought in the Mediterranean theatre of Operations including a wartime book on his great uncle, G/C (retired) Bert Houle.
His medium of choice is acrylic and black ink. His most recent works have mainly been what he considers "aircraft portraits".