ASAA 2023 Forum & Exhibition

ASAA 35th Annual International
Aerospace Art Exhibition

to be on display at the

Pima Air & Space Museum
Tuscon, Arizona
October 9, 2023 — January 31, 2024


Forum Dates: Monday, October 9
through Friday, October 13th

Hotel registration information:

Hotel Address: Four Points Sheraton, 7060 S. Tucson Blvd, Tucson AZ 85746

Hotel Phone Number520-746-0271 Please ask for Delaney or Ariann

Discounted Rate: $119.00 (which includes a full hot breakfast.)

Hotel reservation deadline: September 24th, 2023.

The Week at a Glance:
2023 Pima Arizona Forum

Monday, October 9th: Registration Day. Registration for the forum will be open at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel beginning at noon. Come early to receive your welcome bag and mingle with the other artists. Meals for the day will be on your own.

Tuesday, October 10th : Museum Day. We will kick off the morning with introductions and a welcome Zoom call from founder, Keith Ferris. Marc Poole will give a presentation titled, Tips and Tricks for Plein Air Painting and Observational Drawing. We will then carpool to the Pima Air and Space Museum to tour the exhibit and spend the afternoon drawing and painting. Lunch will be on your own. Make sure you bring your drawing and painting supplies with you to the morning briefing for a quick departure for the day. Dinner is on your own, and Ye Bird and Star will be open at the hotel in the evening.

Wednesday, October 11th : Classes at the Hotel. We have a jam packed day of informative presentations featuring Mark Pestana on Operations Development of the International Space Station: US and Russia Collaboration, Steve Cox on The Art of Professional Model Making, Priscilla Patterson on Facial features/figure drawing/live model drawing session, and Darby Perrin on Armed Forces Art Program Recap 2023. We will hold our business luncheon on this day, which is included in the registration, but dinner will be on your own, and Ye Bird and Star will be open in the evening.

Thursday, October 12th: More Great Classes and a Field Trip. We’ll be pleased to hear from Keith Ferris again via zoom in the morning, followed by a wonderful presentation from Jim Dietz on the creative process of aviation art. We will then pick up our boxed lunches and carpool to the Titan Missile Museum for the rest of the afternoon. Dinner will be on your own and Ye Bird and Star will be open in the evening.

Friday, October 13th: Critique Day. Just when you thought Friday the 13th couldn’t get any scarier, Marc Poole and Michael O’Neal will head up a panel discussion on the art of critiquing followed by the dreaded critique session! Lunch is on your own. Anyone who recovers from the critiques is invited to join Hank Caruso’s panel discussion on publishing your art in books. Marc Poole will give a recap of ASAA events, including the Andrews AF Base event, Rhinebeck, and others. We will wrap up the day by 5pm so we can prepare for the Awards Banquet that evening at the hotel. Attire is Business Dress. The bar opens at 6pm and dinner begins at 7pm. The awards ceremony will follow. Please plan to come to Ye Bird and Star following the awards ceremony for goodbyes as this will be our last night together.

Presenter Topics and Bios

Marc Poole: Plein Air Prep: Tips and Tricks for Plein Air Painting and Observational Drawing

Marc will share some insights and secrets for finding success when creating art from direct observation, prior to the day’s painting and sketching session on-site at the Pima Air & Space Museum.

Marc Poole Bio:

Marc joined the ASAA as an Associate Member in 1992, and became an Artist Member in 2001. He became an ASAA Artist Fellow in 2019. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic Design and a Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Visualization from Mississippi State University, and stayed on as Faculty in the Art Department from 2001-2007. He moved to Biloxi, Mississippi in 2007 and spent the next year as the Multimedia Director for the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino before getting back into academia. He has taught for Tulane University, William Carey University, and the University of Southern Mississippi, and is currently the Fine Arts Instructor at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

Marc is a Private Pilot, an avid plein air painter, and attempts to create his aviation pieces with a strong sense of natural light. He has works in the permanent collections of the National Naval Aviation Museum, the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum, the Navy Art collection, the US Embassy Art Collection, and the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Marc is also a civilian artist in the Marine Corps Combat Art Program.

Mark Pestana PresentationOperations Development of the International Space Station: US and Russia Collaboration

This presentation describes how the US led the negotiations and collaboration between 15 nations, including Russia, in developing the International Space Station (ISS), which began almost 30 years ago and has been continuously occupied for over 22 years. This talk includes the challenges of culture, language, and technical approaches for ISS operations. Presentation by Colonel Mark Pestana, USAF (ret), who was a flight crew operations engineer in the NASA Astronaut Office and ISS Program in the 1990s, and worked periodically in Russia during the development of the ISS.

Mark Pestana, Colonel, USAF (ret), is an aerospace consultant and adjunct faculty at University of Southern California’s Aviation Safety and Security Program. He’s flown over 5000 hours in over 30 aircraft types, from heavy transport to supersonic jet. As a USAF Cold War reconnaissance pilot Mark logged 213 combat intelligence sorties. He has served both the USAF and NASA as a research pilot, and a space operations engineer in NASA’s Astronaut Office. Mark is an ASAA Artist Fellow with 14 paintings in the Pentagon collection and has the unique distinction of designing nine Space Shuttle mission patches for the astronauts.

Priscilla Patterson Presentation: Facial features/figure drawing/live model drawing session

BIO Priscilla Patterson:
ASAA Artist Fellow Priscilla Patterson received her certification in Composite Drawing for Law
Enforcement from Stuart Parks Forensics in 2013 and has 360 hours of training as a police
sketch artist. Before moving to Idaho, she did witness interviews and prepared drawings for
several law enforcement agencies on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. Her current
recertification was completed in 2023.

Priscilla has asked that the artists bring the following items:

  • A set of drawing pencils in varying degrees. HB to 9B would be perfect
  • A ruler- 6″ minimum
  • A kneaded eraser
  • A sketch pad for any on site sketching we might have time for

Darby Perrin Presentation: Armed Forces Art Program Recap 2023

Bio: Darby Perrin

Darby Perrin’s love for aviation began in 1986 when he joined the United States Air Force. Already an accomplished artist, the military fed his creativity and afforded many opportunities to paint and design. He’s been a Crew Chief and flew as an Airborne Communications Technician on AWACS. He was a KC-135 Boom Operator for 20 years. In 2018 he was employed by the Air Force Reserve Command History Office as a full time Historian/Artist. He retired from the Air Force in December of 2021 and still runs his gallery and studio on Tinker AFB outside of Oklahoma City.

Darby is a self-taught artist and has won numerous awards and honors. He has an eye for the majesty and mysticism of aviation and his work is seen on canvases and prints that hang in museums and private collections throughout the world. He’s also designed and painted nose art on 34 USAF aircraft. His gallery and studio house over 100 different prints, and dozens of original paintings including several hand painted leather jackets.

Steve Cox Presentation: The Art of Professional Model Making

Before the advent of digital design/graphics and 3D printing there were a few lucky persons that were able to make a career designing and making models for the aviation industry. Creating complex engineering, wind tunnel and display models with hand drawn plans from highly skilled engineers and draftsmen gave me a valuable understanding of complicated shapes and structures in a 3D world and how to represent them in the 2D world of illustration. Model making and art have always complimented each other and given me an insatiable curiosity and desire to understand how form follows function. I hope to give some insight as to how my art has been shaped by so many aspects of the aviation industry and my desire to promote aviation history through art.

Steve Cox bio:

Steve Cox has been interested in aircraft, artwork, and model-making as long as he can remember. He served in the USAF as a crew chief on C-141s, and at McDonnell Douglas and Boeing as an assembly mechanic on F-15s, 747s and 767s. For the past 28 years he has been a model maker / illustrator in the Rapid Prototyping & Modeling lab at Boeing’s Development Center in Seattle.

His illustrations of new aircraft designs for Boeing, Airmaster / Avalon Aircraft, Aviator Ales, and other private clients have been published in Aviation Week, Flight international, Interavia, Amphibious Warfare Review, International Test Pilots Association, Motor books International, and Air Classics among others. His original paintings hang in the collections of the Museum of Flight, NASA, NASM, Boeing Flight Test, and many private collections.

Hank Caruso: Panel Discussion on Publishing Books of Your Art

Hank Caruso bio:

Hank Caruso’s award-winning Aerocatures ™ are among the most novel and distinctive images in aviation art today. Trained as both an artist and engineer, Hank’s familiarity with aviation technology and aircraft operations enable him to convincingly show how flight crews feel about their aircraft and how the aircraft feel about themselves. His careful draftsmanship and attention to detail add a strong sense of realism to his dynamic portrayals of each aircraft’s unique personality.

The credibility of Hank’s aviation art is enhanced by his first-hand flying experiences as a backseater with Navy and Air Force operational, test, and training squadrons, including the Blue Angels, Top Gun, and the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. On 9 September 2006, the U.S. Navy designated Hank Caruso as Honorary Naval Aviator #27. Hank is an Artist Fellow in the American Society of Aviation Artists (ASAA) and a regular contributor to the U.S. Air Force Art Program and Naval Aviation News. Many military aviation squadrons and civilian aerospace organizations have commissioned original Aerocatures ™ for use as logos, VIP presentations, and limited-edition commemorative prints.

Jim Dietz Presentation: “Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask…”

James Dietz bio (from his website):

A historical painting stands or falls on how well it depicts the story it is attempting to illustrate, and how convincingly it combines the people, their actions, costumes, surroundings and atmosphere in an appropriate composition. A good historical painting uses all of these elements to tell the major story and perhaps a second subtext. Both are driven by how interesting the situation is that the artist is attempting to render. How the viewer reacts to a great painting transcends its immediate story and strikes a deeper chord, one that hopefully evolves and changes as the viewer contemplates the art over time.

It is this last and most worthy goal that artists like James Dietz aspire to. In his portrait of events in the 20th and 21st Centuries, he labors to achieve that rare combination of historical fact and the romance, adventure and color of fiction.

Born in San Francisco, Jim graduated from Art Center College of Design in 1969. He had a successful illustration career in Los Angeles and New York, with a steady flow of work ranging from automobile ads, movie posters, and romantic and historical/action book covers.

By 1978, Jim and his wife had moved to Seattle, where Jim’s work gradually shifted away from commercial illustration to primarily historical aviation, automotive and military art. Today his work is internationally known and collected, and his style, with its emphasis on depth of story, is recognized by collectors of historical art. His list of clients includes Boeing, Bell Helicopter, Federal Express, Allison, Cessna, Flying Tigers, the Indianapolis 500, BMW, US Air Force Documentary Art Program, Wingnut Studios, Meadowbrook and Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the National Guard and many U.S. Army organizations and associations to include: the 82nd Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army Rangers, Special Forces, 1st Division, 2nd Division 3rd Division, 4th Division, 1st Cavalry Division, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Regiment, the Command General Staff College, and the United States Army War College.

Awards include:

  • Best in Show, EAA Aviation Art Show, three successive years, 1989-91
  • Named Master Artist, EAA, 1992
  • People’s Choice Award, American Society of Aviation Artists, 1988
  • Best in Show, Franklin Mint Artists Show, 1992
  • Best in Show & three Best of Era Awards, San Antonio Military Art Show, 1992
  • Honorable Mention, American Society of Aviation Artists Show, 1994
  • Best in Show, Flying Magazine/Simuflite Art Show, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2000, 2001
  • Award of Merit, Flying Magazine/Simuflite Art Show, 1995, 2000
  • Best in Show, Naval Aviation Museum Art Show, 1994, 2000
  • First Place, Naval Aviation Museum Art Show, 1995
  • R. G. Smith Award for Excellence in Naval Aviation Art, National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, FL, 1997
  • Best in Show, Women in Aviation Show, C.R. Smith Museum, Dallas, TX, 1997
  • Stanley Wanlass Award, for excellence in strength of design and composition, echoing the spirit of the automobile, Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance, 1997
  • Featured Artist, Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance, 1999
  • Award of Excellence, Automotive Fine Artists of America show at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, 1999, 2000
  • Peter Helck Award, Automotive Fine Artists of America show at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, 1999, 2000
  • League of WWI Aviation Historians, four Silver Cups

Jim has been a member of the World War I Aviation Historical Hall of Fame, an Artist Fellow of the American Society of Aviation Artists and a board member of the Automotive Fine Artists of America. He had one-man shows at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1990, 1998 and 2003; San Diego Air & Space Museum in 1990; and the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in 2003. In 2001, Barnes & Noble Publishing released a book on Jim’s World War II art, entitled Portraits of Combat. In 2005, Jim fulfilled a childhood dream when he got the opportunity for a cameo role in Peter Jackson’s (Lord of the Rings) remake of King Kong. Jim plays the role of a pilot of the Curtis Helldiver aircraft which fires at Kong while he is perched high above New York on the Empire State Building.

Jim and his wife, Patti, live in Seattle with their dog, Sarah, who shares the distinction with previous Dietz pets, of being a regular in Jim’s paintings. Their son, Ian, is currently an officer serving in the U.S. Army. Jim works in a warm, pleasantly cluttered studio that resembles a WWI aviation bar, surrounded by uniforms, props and models that have made their way into paintings over the years.

Marc Poole: Plein Air Prep: Tips and Tricks for Plein Air Painting and Observational Drawing

Marc will share some insights and secrets for finding success when creating art from direct observation, prior to the day’s painting and sketching session on-site at the Pima Air & Space Museum.

Marc Poole Bio:

Marc joined the ASAA as an Associate Member in 1992, and became an Artist Member in 2001. He became an ASAA Artist Fellow in 2019. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic Design and a Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Visualization from Mississippi State University, and stayed on as Faculty in the Art Department from 2001-2007. He moved to Biloxi, Mississippi in 2007 and spent the next year as the Multimedia Director for the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino before getting back into academia. He has taught for Tulane University, William Carey University, and the University of Southern Mississippi, and is currently the Fine Arts Instructor at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

Marc is a Private Pilot, an avid plein air painter, and attempts to create his aviation pieces with a strong sense of natural light. He has works in the permanent collections of the National Naval Aviation Museum, the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum, the Navy Art collection, the US Embassy Art Collection, and the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Marc is also a civilian artist in the Marine Corps Combat Art Program.

Mark Pestana Presentation: Operations Development of the International Space Station: US and Russia Collaboration

This presentation describes how the US led the negotiations and collaboration between 15 nations, including Russia, in developing the International Space Station (ISS), which began almost 30 years ago and has been continuously occupied for over 22 years. This talk includes the challenges of culture, language, and technical approaches for ISS operations. Presentation by Colonel Mark Pestana, USAF (ret), who was a flight crew operations engineer in the NASA Astronaut Office and ISS Program in the 1990s, and worked periodically in Russia during the development of the ISS.

Long BIO

Mark Pestana, Colonel, USAFR (ret), is an aerospace operations consultant and faculty at the University of Southern California’s School of Engineering. A rated Command Pilot, he’s flown over 5000 hours in over 30 types of aircraft and logged 213 combat intelligence sorties. He is

also a space operations engineer, with assignments in the DOD Space Shuttle Program, and in the NASA Astronaut Office and Russian Space Agency, developing the International Space Station. He served as a research pilot in NASA’s aeronautics and Earth science programs. Mark is an Artist Fellow of the American Society of Aviation Artists, and the U.S. Air Force Art Program. His art is in private, corporate, and government collections, and fourteen of his paintings are in the USAF Pentagon collection. He also has the unique distinction of designing nine Space Shuttle mission patches for the astronauts. Mark is also an actor and member of the Screen Actors Guild, with experience in feature film and television.

Short BIO

Mark Pestana, Colonel, USAF (ret), is an aerospace consultant and adjunct faculty at University of Southern California’s Aviation Safety and Security Program. He’s flown over 5000 hours in over 30 aircraft types, from heavy transport to supersonic jet. As a USAF Cold War reconnaissance pilot Mark logged 213 combat intelligence sorties. He has served both the USAF and NASA as a research pilot, and a space operations engineer in NASA’s Astronaut Office. Mark is an ASAA Artist Fellow with 14 paintings in the Pentagon collection and has the unique distinction of designing nine Space Shuttle mission patches for the astronauts.

Priscilla Patterson Presentation: Facial features/figure drawing/live model drawing session

BIO Priscilla Patterson: ASAA Artist Fellow Priscilla Patterson received her certification in Composite Drawing for Law Enforcement from Stuart Parks Forensics in 2013 and has 360 hours of training as a police sketch artist. Before moving to Idaho, she did witness interviews and prepared drawings for several law enforcement agencies on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. Her current recertification was completed in 2023.

Priscilla has asked that the artists bring the following items:

· A set of drawing pencils in varying degrees. HB to 9B would be perfect

· A ruler- 6″ minimum

· A kneaded eraser

· A sketch pad for any on site sketching we might have time for

Darby Perrin Presentation: Armed Forces Art Program Recap 2023

Bio: Darby Perrin

Darby Perrin’s love for aviation began in 1986 when he joined the United States Air Force. Already an accomplished artist, the military fed his creativity and afforded many opportunities to paint and design. He’s been a Crew Chief and flew as an Airborne Communications Technician on AWACS. He was a KC-135 Boom Operator for 20 years. In 2018 he was employed by the Air Force Reserve Command History Office as a full time Historian/Artist. He retired from the

Air Force in December of 2021 and still runs his gallery and studio on Tinker AFB outside of Oklahoma City.

Darby is a self-taught artist and has won numerous awards and honors. He has an eye for the majesty and mysticism of aviation and his work is seen on canvases and prints that hang in museums and private collections throughout the world. He’s also designed and painted nose art on 34 USAF aircraft. His gallery and studio house over 100 different prints, and dozens of original paintings including several hand painted leather jackets.

Steve Cox Presentation: The Art of Professional Model Making

Before the advent of digital design/graphics and 3D printing there were a few lucky persons that were able to make a career designing and making models for the aviation industry. Creating complex engineering, wind tunnel and display models with hand drawn plans from highly skilled engineers and draftsmen gave me a valuable understanding of complicated shapes and structures in a 3D world and how to represent them in the 2D world of illustration. Model making and art have always complimented each other and given me an insatiable curiosity and desire to understand how form follows function. I hope to give some insight as to how my art has been shaped by so many aspects of the aviation industry and my desire to promote aviation history through art.

Steve Cox bio:

Steve Cox has been interested in aircraft, artwork, and model-making as long as he can remember. He served in the USAF as a crew chief on C-141s, and at McDonnell Douglas and Boeing as an assembly mechanic on F-15s, 747s and 767s. For the past 28 years he has been a model maker / illustrator in the Rapid Prototyping & Modeling lab at Boeing’s Development Center in Seattle.

His illustrations of new aircraft designs for Boeing, Airmaster / Avalon Aircraft, Aviator Ales, and other private clients have been published in Aviation Week, Flight international, Interavia, Amphibious Warfare Review, International Test Pilots Association, Motor books International, and Air Classics among others. His original paintings hang in the collections of the Museum of Flight, NASA, NASM, Boeing Flight Test, and many private collections.

Hank Caruso: Panel Discussion on Publishing Books of Your Art

Hank Caruso bio:

Hank Caruso’s award-winning Aerocatures ™ are among the most novel and distinctive images in aviation art today. Trained as both an artist and engineer, Hank’s familiarity with aviation technology and aircraft operations enable him to convincingly show how flight crews feel about their aircraft and how the aircraft feel about themselves. His careful draftsmanship and attention to detail add a strong sense of realism to his dynamic portrayals of each aircraft’s unique personality.

The credibility of Hank’s aviation art is enhanced by his first-hand flying experiences as a backseater with Navy and Air Force operational, test, and training squadrons, including the Blue Angels, Top Gun, and the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. On 9 September 2006, the U.S. Navy designated Hank Caruso as Honorary Naval Aviator #27. Hank is an Artist Fellow in the American Society of Aviation Artists (ASAA) and a regular contributor to the U.S. Air Force Art Program and Naval Aviation News. Many military aviation squadrons and civilian aerospace organizations have commissioned original Aerocatures ™ for use as logos, VIP presentations, and limited-edition commemorative prints.

Jim Dietz Presentation: “Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask…”

James Dietz bio (from his website):

A historical painting stands or falls on how well it depicts the story it is attempting to illustrate, and how convincingly it combines the people, their actions, costumes, surroundings and atmosphere in an appropriate composition. A good historical painting uses all of these elements to tell the major story and perhaps a second subtext. Both are driven by how interesting the situation is that the artist is attempting to render. How the viewer reacts to a great painting transcends its immediate story and strikes a deeper chord, one that hopefully evolves and changes as the viewer contemplates the art over time.

It is this last and most worthy goal that artists like James Dietz aspire to. In his portrait of events in the 20th and 21st Centuries, he labors to achieve that rare combination of historical fact and the romance, adventure and color of fiction.

Born in San Francisco, Jim graduated from Art Center College of Design in 1969. He had a successful illustration career in Los Angeles and New York, with a steady flow of work ranging from automobile ads, movie posters, and romantic and historical/action book covers.

By 1978, Jim and his wife had moved to Seattle, where Jim’s work gradually shifted away from commercial illustration to primarily historical aviation, automotive and military art. Today his work is internationally known and collected, and his style, with its emphasis on depth of story, is recognized by collectors of historical art. His list of clients includes Boeing, Bell Helicopter, Federal Express, Allison, Cessna, Flying Tigers, the Indianapolis 500, BMW, US Air Force Documentary Art Program, Wingnut Studios, Meadowbrook and Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the National Guard and many U.S. Army organizations and associations to include: the 82nd Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army Rangers, Special Forces, 1st Division, 2nd Division 3rd Division, 4th Division, 1st Cavalry Division, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Regiment, the Command General Staff College, and the United States Army War College.

Awards include:

· Best in Show, EAA Aviation Art Show, three successive years, 1989-91

· Named Master Artist, EAA, 1992

· People’s Choice Award, American Society of Aviation Artists, 1988

· Best in Show, Franklin Mint Artists Show, 1992

· Best in Show & three Best of Era Awards, San Antonio Military Art Show, 1992

· Honorable Mention, American Society of Aviation Artists Show, 1994

· Best in Show, Flying Magazine/Simuflite Art Show, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2000, 2001

· Award of Merit, Flying Magazine/Simuflite Art Show, 1995, 2000

· Best in Show, Naval Aviation Museum Art Show, 1994, 2000

· First Place, Naval Aviation Museum Art Show, 1995

· R. G. Smith Award for Excellence in Naval Aviation Art, National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, FL, 1997

· Best in Show, Women in Aviation Show, C.R. Smith Museum, Dallas, TX, 1997

· Stanley Wanlass Award, for excellence in strength of design and composition, echoing the spirit of the automobile, Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance, 1997

· Featured Artist, Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance, 1999

· Award of Excellence, Automotive Fine Artists of America show at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, 1999, 2000

· Peter Helck Award, Automotive Fine Artists of America show at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, 1999, 2000

· League of WWI Aviation Historians, four Silver Cups

Jim has been a member of the World War I Aviation Historical Hall of Fame, an Artist Fellow of the American Society of Aviation Artists and a board member of the Automotive Fine Artists of America. He had one-man shows at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1990, 1998 and 2003; San Diego Air & Space Museum in 1990; and the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in 2003. In 2001, Barnes & Noble Publishing released a book on Jim’s World War II art, entitled Portraits of Combat. In 2005, Jim fulfilled a childhood dream when he got the opportunity for a cameo role in Peter Jackson’s (Lord of the Rings) remake of King Kong. Jim plays the role of a pilot of the Curtis Helldiver aircraft which fires at Kong while he is perched high above New York on the Empire State Building.

Jim and his wife, Patti, live in Seattle with their dog, Sarah, who shares the distinction with previous Dietz pets, of being a regular in Jim’s paintings. Their son, Ian, is currently an officer serving in the U.S. Army. Jim works in a warm, pleasantly cluttered studio that resembles a WWI aviation bar, surrounded by uniforms, props and models that have made their way into paintings over the years

Jim and his wife, Patti, live in Seattle with their dog, Sarah, who shares the distinction with previous Dietz pets, of being a regular in Jim’s paintings. Their son, Ian, is currently an officer serving in the U.S. Army. Jim works in a warm, pleasantly cluttered studio that resembles a WWI aviation bar, surrounded by uniforms, props and models that have made their way into paintings over the years.

We look forward to seeing you in Tucson this year! 

American Society of Aviation Artists