It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…wait, it actually is a plane! It’s one of the few original, unrestored Japanese Zero fighter planes left in the world, shipped all the way from the Solomon Islands.
For the past 20 years, Ron Cole has dedicated himself to sharing his love for aviation history and art with the people of Zanesville, even if the journey from Hollywood designer to niche museum curator required a divorce and a massive career change.
Today, Cole applies the skills he learned working for companies such as Pixar and Mattel, to teach the younger generation aviation history in an interactive way. Cole’s Aircraft serves two purposes: to showcase his art pieces available for purchase and to display his stunning aviation artifact collection.
Cole has dedicated himself to his museum and art shop, Cole’s Aircraft. Every inch of the walls features a piece of history, from an autograph by William Messerschmitt, the creator of the most used German plane in WWII, to a painting of the 1903 Wright Flyer, featuring an original piece of linen.
Cole’s love for aviation started long before he had ever heard of Muskingum County.
Cole grew up in Binghamton, New York. He yawns after sharing this information about himself, implying that the mid-sized city may not have been the most exciting place for a young boy. He knew he needed to find a hobby, and so his love for aircraft began to flourish.
“I was basically an aviation history nerd,” Cole says. “I had the best backyard in the neighborhood for outdoor activities that I never used. All the neighborhood kids would be out there playing kickball or whatever, and I would be inside with the shades drawn reading aviation books or building scale models of World War II airplanes.”
Eventually, his fascination for models and design led him to the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he studied industrial design.
After graduation, he moved across the country to Los Angeles, California, to work as a designer and product development engineer. Cole worked on movie sets alongside stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Mike Myers, building models and character studies. He also worked on movies such as Shark Tales and Madagascar.
“There’s an interview with David Schwimmer, who did the voice for the giraffe (in Madagascar), and he’s sitting next to an end table on a set, and on the end table is my scale model of his giraffe character,” Cole says.
After 15 years working in the film industry, Cole’s family moved back across the country to Southeast Ohio, for his ex-wife’s job at Muskingum University.
“We moved to LA for my career, so we’ll move back to Ohio for your career, right? She’s moved on and I’m still here, and now I’ve been re-married for eight years,” Cole says with a light laugh.
After the move, Cole needed a new occupation.
“I was just like, I’m going to take my skillset and combine it with my passion. I always say, if you’re going to start your own business, do what you know. So, in 2006, I started my for-profit business Cole’s Aircraft Aviation Art,” Cole says.
Cole has proven to have a talent for creating what he boasts as “conversation pieces.” Cole sells his work online and even has a yearly calendar with Barnes & Noble.
What Cole loves most though is connecting his art with aviation history, using Cole’s Aircraft as a space to highlight both. He combines a piece of the plane with a painting of that plane in action, such as taking off a runway or in active combat.
Many of Cole’s art pieces show off the storied history of WWII aviation. Cole is lucky enough to have secured one of the original, unrestored Japanese Zero planes left in the world.
“(The process to get the Zero) took 17 years, all told. From the point where negotiations began with the government of the Solomon Islands, to the point where the aircraft literally got dropped off in a container that was loaded in Australia, after having gone through the Panama Canal during Covid no less,” Cole says.
The Zero planes were most infamously used by the Japanese army in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Given their importance to aviation history, Cole was excited to turn them into art.
“The artwork that resulted and now accompanies it (the Zero fighter), showing that aircraft in action with pieces of an American B-17, that the Zero plane met in combat in the South Pacific. It’s so amazing to bring them back together all these years later on the other side of the world,” Cole says.
Recently, he and his wife, Erin, have been working on their non-profit restoration, Cole Art Center. The Cole Art Center aims to bring more aviation history to life by putting Zanesville on the map with marquee pieces such as a replica of the Wright Flyer III, which Cole won in a heated bidding war.
All told, Cole wants to continue to provide a space for the people of Zanesville to directly interact with the planes of the past. “It’s the idea of show, don’t tell,” Cole says. “Put things in their hands, and all of a sudden, it becomes real, doesn’t it?”
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