Yellowknife, NWT – One of Yellowknife’s best known citizens, Francois Thibault, has died.
He was better known as T-Bo, and was one of the city’s most renowned artists, sculptors and jewelry makers.
T-Bo owned and operated his business, Originals by T-Bo, in Yellowknife for some 26 years.
His wife says he passed peacefully of brain cancer yesterday at Stanton Hospital.
He had announced that he had the disease on Facebook late last month.
Mayor Mark Heyck says it’s a terrible loss for the community.
“It’s a big loss for the arts community and certainly for Yellowknife as a whole. Francois was such a passionate advocate for the arts. Not just art for the arts sake but he also saw the immense economic potential that arts could have for a city like Yellowknife so it’s a big loss for all of us and I’m certainly sad to hear the news.”
Heyck says T-Bo’s legacy in Yellowknife is secure both physically and inspirationally.
“The United in Celebration sculpture at the Somba Ke Civic Plaza will certainly stand as a beautiful legacy of the work that T-Bo did here in Yellowknife. I know he touched a lot of artists right across the community so that experience, passion and drive that he had for the arts will carry on well into the future.”
A celebration of his life will be held in front of his stunning sculpture on the lake beside City Hall.
The date for that has yet to be confirmed.
T-Bo was born in Ottawa and came to the Northwest Territories in the 1990’s.
Francois T-Bo was 53 years old.
Our condolences go out to his wife and family.
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