Dwight Thomas Atkinson passed away peacefully in hospital on November 16, 2021 with his wife by his side. He was 67 and loved residing in Vancouver BC for 41 years.
Born and raised in Saint Boniface MB, he was predeceased by his parents, Doris (nee Schentag) and Thomas Atkinson.
Survived by Jennifer Lamb (his devoted wife of forty years), his Aunt Blanche Parkhill and many cousins.
A retired architect, Dwight will also be fondly remembered as an iconographer, instructor, author, architectural illustrator, painter, public artist, problem solver, handyman, chef, swimmer, flaneur, radio documentarian, comic, volunteer, polymath, optimist, loyal friend and neighbourhood character.
Adapting to pancreatic cancer for two years, he was grateful to be encircled by supportive friends, neighbours and medical practitioners. He was actively cultivating new friendships until his final month and took great joy scaring trick-or-treaters at Hallowe’en as he lurked on a neighbour’s porch in an Atki-built costume. He pursued creative projects until his final week when he was hospitalized with pneumonia.
Dwight possessed insatiable curiosity, ingenuity, a sharp mind and a workshop full of tools, to solve any neighbour’s question or calamity. His friends near and far cherished his quirky persona, boundless enthusiasm, sense of fun and big heart.
He was a prodigious doodler, car enthusiast, one-time Legends race car driver, wannabe guitarist and keyboardist, budding sandcastle builder and ambitious accumulator of potentially useful objects. He was fond of quokkas, bunnies, magnets, sushi, crustless cucumber sandwiches, LEGO, glass scientific vessels, tool catalogues and long road trips with Jenny or his best friend. He collected every possible hand tool and implement dating back to the 1960s, and indiscriminately consumed movies and tv shows on his computer. During their 40-year marriage, they never owned a television; Jenny always said Dwight was entertainment enough.
Determined, thrifty and resourceful, he tackled home improvements and repairs until his final week in his effort to “prepare the house for the widow,” his frequent saying after his April 2020 official diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Dwight’s carpentry is evident in the two-level addition to their modest old cottage he built in 1985 with much-appreciated assistance from his retired father Tom and several friends.
Dwight took great pleasure in problem-solving, from the sophisticated issues of ArchiCAD’s 3-D renderings to the mundane problem of designing an effective, durable and elegant ladder for a cabin bunkbed using lumber at hand. He had a wonderful blend of an engineer’s intelligent understanding of how things work and an artist’s imaginative vision of what was possible, as well as the unusual love of brainstorming with collaborators while maintaining a single-minded focus on the problem at hand.
After high school in Winnipeg, Dwight pursued architecture as a compromise between the fine art program he desired and the engineering program his practical father preferred. He was eternally curious about how things work or don’t work, from both an engineer’s and a designer’s point of view. In 1978, he was the youngest-ever Masters in Architecture graduate at the University of Manitoba. Before graduating, he managed to attract the attention of his future wife Jenny who was just starting in the Faculty of Architecture.
Anxious to relocate to the West Coast he had fixated on as a teenager during a family vacation, Dwight found architectural work in 1980 in Victoria then Vancouver. Jenny joined him in Vancouver in 1981 after she graduated, never taking him up on his promise to move to Toronto if she didn’t like Vancouver after a year’s trial. In their four decades together in Vancouver, they never tired of gazing at the mountains from Spanish Banks beach and congratulating themselves on moving to the coast. His other happy places included the Kitsilano outdoor pool and a cabin on Shoal Lake ON that he designed for high school friends, helped build in the 1970s and loved visiting almost annually. Chemo restarted in September 2021 at his final cabin visit.
In 1982 Dwight completed his architecture internship and registered as a member of the Architectural Institute of BC. He completed the Certified Building Professional program in 1993. He retired from full-time architectural practice in 2012 after thirty years of international project experience working with several Canadian firms. His practice was dominated by multi-family housing and transit stations, including rezoning and urban planning.
A downturn in the building industry in 1982, and encouragement from a former teacher, spurred him to learn air-brush painting. His paintings on paper were reproduced as art cards and prints. He progressed to 4 x 8’ air-brush paintings on masonite panels and later became skilled with watercolours and metal sculptures.
Instrumental to his artistic career was a 1984 Canada Council for the Arts “Explorations” grant, the largest individual award at that time. He had the unique opportunity in 1990 to travel the Northwest Territories around Tuktoyaktuk in a helicopter through the government-funded Arctic Awareness Program “Northern Experience,” later producing related paintings.
From 1984 to 2013, his paintings were exhibited in Toronto and Metro Vancouver, including three solo shows. He was represented by three galleries and completed art commissions for major Canadian corporations such as Canadian Airlines’ Empress lounge at Vancouver International airport. In the summer of 2021 between regimens of chemo, he completed some innovative sculptures and exhibited a controversial watercolour painting in a juried show at the Canadian Federation of Artists gallery.
He performed as a stand-up comic throughout the Pacific Northwest after completing the Comedy Gym in 1994. Until the pandemic, he continued to attend comedy performances in Washington State with a Comedy Gym friend. His comic attitude helped him greatly during his cancer treatment: major surgery plus a total of 8 months of chemo in two regimens. The side effects were distressing but he tried to find something to laugh about each day.
His email signature proclaiming to be Canada’s Funniest Architect garnered him speaking engagements at several annual sessions of Archicad University in Nottingham, England. He was a top contributor to the Archicad-Talk forum and still ranks among the most active community members with over 7000 posts. The three technical but humorous books he wrote about architectural illustration led to teaching workshops in America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. He loved travelling along with Jenny on any itinerary she devised. He also taught fine art at the Royal Oak College of Design and at SketchUp workshops.
Dwight established Atkinson Iconography Studio Limited in 1983 and with skilled collaborators completed public art installations between 1995 and 2007 in Denver, North Vancouver, Vancouver, Whistler and at UBC. The Studio’s motto was “Elevating the everyday toward the extraordinary.” He received an Urban Design award from the City of North Vancouver.
He volunteered as a director of Design Vancouver, a board member the GDL Alliance, a board member of St. Margaret’s School in Victoria and he tended rabbits at the BC SPCA. With Tetra Society, he fabricated clever assistive devices to help those with physical disabilities. He adopted several storm drains in his neighbourhood and kept them clear of leaves during autumn storms.
Hosts will miss his skill at carving ham and turkey; he offered his services as a kitchen helper to feel at ease at parties. A student of the Dirty Apron Cooking School, Dwight spent years researching his proposed cookbook called “Getting Chicks with Food: Being the Man in the Kitchen.” Many pies and loaves of bread were baked as research efforts. It was sad how chemo and cancer affected his appetite, digestion and taste buds.
He accepted all the cancer treatments he was offered and remained optimistic while still making practical preparations. He was amazed and comforted by the outpouring of concern and assistance for him and for Jenny. He was clear and at peace on his final day and was able to say good-bye. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who accompanied Dwight and Jenny on his cancer journey.
To send condolences directly to the family email:` remembering.dwight.atkinson@gmail.com.
Donations may be made to charities supporting those living with cancer such as:
CaringBridge
Wellspring Calgary
Well on the Web
Inspire Health
Callanish Society
Or a charity of your choice.
To send condolences directly to the family, email remembering.dwight.atkinson@gmail.com
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Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of Dwight Atkinson Tuesday November 16th 2021..
Affordable cremation and burial
Death notice for the town of: Port-Coquitlam, Province: Colombie britanique