John Livingston, born in Vancouver, is a non-Native, adopted Kwakwaka'wakw. He has been affiliated with the Hunt family since the 1970s when he was taught the art of carving by Henry and Tony Hunt. A renowned carver, he has also produced numerous reproductions of older works in museum collections.

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Myfanwy Pavelic was born and raised on Vancouver Island. She is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy and a Companion of the Order of Canada. In the autumn of 1990, she was commissioned to paint an official portrait of Pierre Trudeau.

Trudeau came to her house on January 3, 1991, and stayed for two days. Rather than have him pose right away, she let him wander through the house, while she made quick sketches and Karl Spreitz took photos. Over the next three months she created over 40 completed works, with a choice of four or five serious works to be selected from. Although a different portrait from this series was chosen to hang in the House of Commons, Blue Sky was one of Trudeau’s favorites.

Godfrey Stephens is a non-native painter, carver, and boat-builder and was greatly influenced by Mungo Martin, whom he knew as child and as young man. He currently lives in Victoria and is building another boat.

Don Yeomans is a Haida carver, painter, and printmaker. Born in Fort Rupert in 1953, he has worked on projects with such luminaries as Robert Davidson, Reg Davidson, and John Livingston. Yeomans also carved the staff held by the Haida chief in Bill Reid’s The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, the castings of which can be found in the Canadian Chancery in Washington D.C., and in the Vancouver International Airport.

Flat Iron was purchased by the University of Victoria from the artist at the Sooke Fine Arts Show in 2001. It has been loaned to Swans from the University of Victoria Collection to augment the current display.

The Chilkat weaving style was used by some traditional groups along the Northwest Coast in making robes, dance aprons, and other ceremonial regalia. This robe was collected at the village of Klukwan Alaska, and woven by Denqulhut of the Chilkat Tlingit in the latter part of the 19th Century.

Ken Flett’s works are characterized by a great compassion for his marginalized subjects; homeless people, alcoholics, transvestites, and others. These portraits, adapted from photographs and collaged with the real detritus of his subjects' lives, work to lend insight into their worlds, presenting them not as stereotypes from the edges of society but as people with their own stories. He currently works at a shelter for homeless men in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

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James Gordaneer was born in 1933 in Toronto, and grew up on the fringes of the famed Toronto art group Painters Eleven. He was a professor at the Victoria College of Art for many years, during which he also exhibited regularly. In the 1980s, he and several of his young associates founded the Chapman Group, an informal society devoted to creating highly figurative images plotted on to curved space. This technique creates the shifting, slightly skewed appearance of Gordaneer's imagery. He uses this style to explore and express the aspects of an image that remain constant over time.

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Tom Hunt or Walawidi (Precious) was born in Victoria, BC in 1964. He is the son of Chief George Hunt and Mary Hunt (nee Henderson) and a member of the famous Hunt family of artists of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nation. He has been carving since the age of twelve. Initially instructed by his father, George Hunt, Tom also studied with John Livingston. In 1983 he moved to Fort Rupert to apprentice with his uncle, Calvin Hunt. While versatile in other media, he prefers woodcarving, and his works can now be found in collections all over the world.

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Chief Tony Hunt or Mu-pen-kim Kla-kwa dzee ("Four-Times- Chief Big Copper') is hereditary chief of the Kwakwaka'wakw people of Fort Rupert and Kingcome Inlet, BC. Tony Hunt, his father Henry Hunt and his grandfather, Chief Mungo Martin were the creators of Victoria's Thunderbird Park. Located next to the Royal British Columbia Museum, the park contains a carving shed, a traditional big house, and a collection of totem. Tony Hunt has been an artist all his life, and has designed and carved nearly one hundred full-scale totem poles .

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Max Maynard was born in 1903 in India to missionary parents who moved to Victoria in 1912. Maynard was largely self-taught as an artist and his best work owes a large debt to the Group of Seven and Emily Carr. Both Shadbolt and Maynard visited and learned from the mature Carr until she threw them out with the accusation that they were stealing her artistic ideas. Maynard left an important legacy in BC’s art history both through his work at the Vancouver Art Gallery, his championing of the modernist cause, and his distinctive paintings from the 30’s and 40’s. The artist also enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a professor of English at the University of New Hampshire where he taught until his retirement in 1973. He returned to Victoria in 1978 and died here in 1982.

Luis Merino was born in 1942 in Mexico City. He started life drawing lessons at age 15 and went on to study visual arts at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City between 1967-1969. In 1970, Merino immigrated to Canada, settling in Victoria in 1972. He soon became a prominent and active member in the local arts community. He painted murals inside various public buildings, as well as private establishments such as Hugo's Bar and Grill, and produced large outdoor sculptures for areas such as Market Square.

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Winona Plentyhoops is a member of the Crow Nation in Montana, USA. Michael Williams collected several of her works, including a number of traditional dolls.

Manuel Salazar, born in Seattle in 1966, is affiliated with the Coast Salish Cowichan group in Duncan, BC and the Coast Salish group in Ladysmith, BC through his mother's descent. While traditional Coast Salish iconography and legends comprise the foundation of his art, Salazar interprets these in a vibrant, contemporary, and unique form.

Cheryl Samuel is a weaver and visual artist whose research into the lost Northwest Coast art of ravenstail weaving, a forerunner of the Chilkat style used by such artists as Denqulhut (near the entrance to the pub) carried her across the world form New York to Russia. She currently teaches at the University of Alaska in Sitka.

Jimmy Wright is an expatriate American graduated from the University of Berkeley with a degree in economics more than 35 years ago. He now paints full time in his studio in Victoria.