Funding is a major issue for every artist; people want to watch a good play; people want to get entertained and they don’t want to pay for it. - Peju Layiwola

My interest in art derived from the great influences that Benin art, culture, festivals and history presented growing up in the city. My mother also had a strong influence on me. I not only learnt art from her at home, she was also my art teacher at the Federal Government Girls’ College, Benin. My principal, Josephine Ifueko Omigie, was an art graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The cultural events organised by the school helped stimulate interest in arts and culture. We had an annual week-long competition on cultural activities that engaged every student in one creative activity or the other. I was also a member of the school choir and played the piano.

But this is also a privilege I have enjoyed from others. I have had great mentors-Professor Irein Wangboje who employed me at the University of Benin; Professor Cornelius Adepegba, who was my doctoral supervisor at the University of Ibadan. Both of them died early in my career. God provided others who stood in the gap.

But my teaching is not limited to university students. I have straddled different categories and classes of people within the society. I have taught pupils and secondary school students, illiterates, barbers, mechanics, tailors, petty traders and welders, masons who need rudimentary skills in the arts to earn a decent living at community based workshops. In both spaces, I have had great fulfilment.