Kent James Crawford

Kenton (Kent) James Crawford, born January 7th 1956 and passed on August 4th 2024, after a courageous battle with cancer. Survived by his wife Janet (Button), brothers Cameron, Lyle and Blair, and stepsisters Sian and Kim Burgess. Predeceased by his mother Lois Burgess (Wright), father Jeff Crawford, and stepfather Geoffrey Burgess. Kent will also be dearly missed by his cousins Elly, Les and Phil, Christie, Peter and Heather, Fraser and Eric and John. Also, his extended family in Canada, New Zealand and Mexico.

Kent met Janet Button in 1994, and they married in 1998, settling in Vancouver for 24 years, then moved to Collwood, Victoria in 2022. They travelled to Janet’s native New Zealand a number of times.

In line with his art, Kent was a dreamer and deep thinker. After a youth spent in Vancouver and at Long Beach on Vancouver Island, he studied fine art at the University of California at Irvine, and industrial design at Western Washington University. For over thirty years, his paintings and screen prints reflected his experience of the West Coast wilderness as a spiritual retreat from the disorder of life. It was the source of his mystical insights into the nature of nature.

An early influence was Arthur Lismer of the Group of 7, who had a cabin on Long Beach, and enjoyed having Kent and his brothers watch him paint. Kent was deeply influenced by watching Arthur paint, and we believe this contributed to him becoming an artist.

He also loved photography, nature, and adventures in the outdoors, with a focus of collecting inspirations for his paintings. As a hiker and tree planter, he was familiar with many terrains, and discovered in them an immutability that anchored his soul, and a variety that excited his mind and senses. This excitement was painstakingly and beautifully rendered in his paintings and screen prints.

Since his university days in California, he was a lifelong cyclist for everything from running errands to just his pure enjoyment of riding a good bike. His was a highly analytic mind, desiring to delve deeply, going all-in for subjects that would interest/fascinate him, from audio electronics to philosophy.

Since settling in Victoria with Janet, natural spaces were a short bike ride away to provide him further inspirations.

The family is thankful for the care Kent received at the Victoria General Hospital, the Royal Jubilee Hospital’s Palliative Care Unit and the Victoria Hospice. In lieu of flowers, the family would be grateful for a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society.