My City August 2021

MYARTS

“God placed me in Flint and I have a responsibility to it. We all do.”

Svitlana / stock.adobe.com

Growing up in Flint presented its challenges, but Thigpen thrived in the environment. “From early on, my mother and father allowed me to explore my creativity and fostered my talent,” he remembers. He attended Flint Central High, a school that did not offer an expansive art program, so he attended Genesee Skill Center where he learned the basics of graphic design and pho tography. He took those skills to Mott Community College and then to UM Flint where he finished his undergrad degree, winning awards for graphic design and accolades from the faculty.

From there,Thigpen headed to New York. Plying his trade as a graphic de signer, he worked with multiple com panies and people and while there, his current artistic style was born. “It started from a blog that I was producing,” he ex plains. “I was taking photos in New York and adding my own elements to them. The whole process developed over the course of a year and social media played a big role. People kept encouraging me to continue and started asking for prints of my pieces.” Playing a big role in his art process is the energy of being somewhere or seeing something new.

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