MEET OCTOBER ARTIST OF THE MONTH: Justine Crawford

Before the buzz of the tattoo gun filled Gastown’s Soft Hands Studio, I interviewed the artist putting a permanent mark on me. 

Justine Crawford’s work caught my eye in the halls of local yoga studio Stretch. Three large prints featured Crawford’s main comic characters—a rosy-cheeked young woman, and a Casper-esque figure.

“Soft Boy is kind of meant to represent my emotions because the girl in the comics is more of a literal representation of me,” says the Surrey-born artist, whose neon orange hair isn’t reflected in her minimally coloured cartoons.  

“When I was trying to convey more abstract ideas or things I felt were too vulnerable for me to represent, I used Soft Boy. He's kind of like a rock for the girl character that's supposed to be me—a support character to show being vulnerable is okay. It's kind of like a reminder to myself.”

Crawford, 25, has had a passion for art since high school, when she painted and drew in a more realistic and detailed style. While taking on the challenge of inking 31 drawings during “Inktober” in October 2018, the daily task forced her to simplify her style. 

When people started reaching out to her and asking if she sold prints, Crawford figured she could turn the challenge into something bigger. Just two years later, the artist now shares a tattoo studio with two others, where her painting on a six foot piece of wood hangs over her station.  

“Wood is such a good canvas to have, especially because my work is minimal—I can show the wood grain through the pieces,” Crawford says, adding that she struggles to pick a preferred art medium. 

“Tattooing is actually quite a lot more strenuous than I realized than just putting pen to paper,” says Crawford, who does machine work. “I get so hungry after every tattoo, it just takes a lot of energy.”

She’s been tattooing since last fall, though the pandemic halted business for months. Crawford says she was introduced to the world through a friend who lived with several tattoo artists. 

“They called it the Peanut Gallery Tattoo Shop,” laughs Crawford, who says the friend has since let her practice new tattooing techniques on him through four different pieces. One of the designs, a Laughing Cow icon with stretched ear lobes and a trucker hat dubbed “Laughing Kyle,” is pinned on her station’s cork-board.  

All of these hustles—the prints, paintings, sales, tattooing—are on top of Crawford’s full-time job as a digital designer. 

“In the next few years, I think I would like to be able to sustain myself just with my art, but right now I'm kind of resting on my laurels a bit. I’m relaxed with how much energy I'm putting into different things,” she says, adding that the security of a corporate job is welcome during the pandemic. 

Right now, her art is a way for her to connect with her culture and Chinese heritage, as well as express vulnerability, through different mediums. 

“Some of my pieces have been inspired directly by my grandpa, so showing my extended family and my grandma these pieces, they think it's a very big tribute to the family.”

The tattoo she designed for me brings in my Ukrainian heritage, with a rosy-cheeked girl pictured inside a nesting doll. For hours, I continue to learn about Crawford as she works up an appetite.

She laughs while telling me how she and her friend paid steep cab fares to travel between hospitals near Nelson this summer, after she broke her wrist half way through a 150 kilometre cycling trip on her one speed bike.  

Between stories of heartbreak, and stories from childhood, I learn of Crawford’s ties to her hometown Surrey’s Indian community—her Chinese mom having grown up in New Delhi. 

Vulnerability and authenticity are as much a part of Crawford’s personality as it is her art. In a time of so much uncertainty, her work demonstrates how art can be both a personal outlet and a point of connection for society. 

I leave the studio feeling excited over much more than a new tattoo and the opportunity to take off my face mask. Crawford, as driven as her hair is bright, is definitely a Vancouverite to watch out for.