Story; Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria
People go into art for a different reason but for Rashid Asirigi, he does arts basically to create employment for himself and others. The self-taught artist is a graduate from the Tamale Technical University.
He started drawing and painting at an early age. According to Rashid he always loves the art of drawing and painting and hence wanted to pursue that cause at the senior high level but was unfortunate not to get a school that offers visual arts. but he still pursued his dream.
His biggest cheerleader, his Mum has always supported him to build his dream from the onset.
When he completed senior high, he worked as an apprentice to an art studio to polish his trade but unfortunately, he had to leave this place.
The reason has been that his master was not teaching them how to paint.
According to him, the master will always let them prepare the canvas and take it to his house where he does the rest of the job without letting his apprentices learn how he did the painting.
This reason led Rashid to leave the place and sort for a new opportunity. He proceeded to TaTu to where he did ceramics.
At tertiary, he was advised by one of his lecturers to consider ditching painting and go into pottery. Though the lecturer loved his paintings, he still gave that advice because he thought the only place to make money is through pottery.
Rashid took the advice and learned how to do pottery. After completion, Rashid now concentrates on doing pottery because the was money in that aspect according to him.
To start his business, his Mum gave him money and currently, he has turned one of the rooms in their house as a workshop to do his work.
But in the near future, he hopes to move out to have his own space for his work and employ others to help him.
As he said in the beginning, the dream is to create a job for himself and employ others as well.
