Yusuf Waajid is a third generation carver. Yusuf explores diverse themes in images that reflect willingness to meet the challenge of working in ceramics, stone, hard woods and metal.
Growing up in a farming community in Louisana, at an early age, Yusuf observed carving techniques and soil preparation processes used by his father and grandfather which ultimately influenced his own artistic creations. A longshoreman for over twenty years, he has promoted music in his spare time on college campuses with a group called “The Black Messengers”. Two of these musicians, Ahmed Ali and Roan Bronson, were also talented painters and inspired Yusuf to begin producing art again.
Yusuf has never received formal training in art, but shuns being labeled a “self-trained artist” due to his exposure to the artworks and philosophies of renowned African-American artists such as Richmond Barthe, Professor Claude Clark Sr., Elizabeth Catlett, and Woody Johnson. Yusuf credits his meeting with Barthe in 1983 as being the major influence upon his works in wood. A merchant seaman earlier in his career, Yusuf has traveled throughout the world to Africa, Brazil, the Philippines and Malaysia. He presently resides in Oakland, CA.