Kevin Cranmer

Port Alberni, British Columbia
Kwakwaka’wakw-‘Namgis / Mamalilikala

Born in Alert Bay, but raised in Victoria, Kevin’s first experience seeing Kwakwaka’wakw art was at the age of four when his father took him to Chief Tony Hunt’s “Arts of the Raven” gallery. Inspired by his father, Danny, and encouraged by his mother, Lily, Kevin’s first formal teaching came in a grade eight native art class taught by relative George Hunt Jr, and was furthered with Tony Hunt and relatives Chief Calvin Hunt, Tony Hunt Jr, John Livingston, and Chief Frank Nelson. Kevin had the opportunity to work at Thunderbird Park at the Royal BC Museum where he assisted Nuu-chah-nulth carver, Tim Paul, on three totem pole projects: a 40-foot pole in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, a 30-foot pole at the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, and a 35-foot pole for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. His most fulfilling work is that created for family or ceremony, and to that end he carved a Chief’s Chair for the reopening of the ‘Namgis Bighouse in Alert Bay in memory of his grandmother Gwantilakw-Agnes Cranmer. Currently, with the guidance of his uncles, Chief Calvin Hunt and John Livingston, he is carving a 40-foot totem pole in memory of his father, Daniel Earl Cranmer.

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