What advice do you have for young artists? Fritz Haeg | Big Think

What advice do you have for young artists?

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Do what you really believe in, even if you have to have a day job.

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Fritz Haeg:

Fritz Haeg works between his art, architecture and design practice Fritz Haeg Studio (though the currently preferred clients are animals), the happenings and gatherings of Sundown Salon (now Sundown Schoolhouse), the ecology initiatives of Gardenlab (including Edible Estates), and other various combinations of building, curating, dancing, designing, exhibiting, gardening, organizing, talking, teaching, and writing. His home base since 2001 is a geodesic dome in the hills of Los Angeles.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What advice do you have for young artists?

Fritz Haeg: Well, that is very challenging. I think for lot of artist you have a job on the side and then you make your work and may be that you continue that until the work that you made can some how sustain you. I don’t know, it is an interesting challenge and it is very difficult. I think the bottom line is you do what you really believe in and what you care about with the hope that at some points that demonstration of the work will find support out in the world. I do believe that it happens inevitably sooner or later and may be a takes of very long time, but at least when it does happen, you will be doing the work that you really care about and that is what we will be supporting you I think. The big problem is to perpetually take on work that you don’t believe or to create work in your own that you don’t believe in, because that each piece of work that is put out there demonstrates what you wanted to do. Inevitably you get invited to do more of the same, so it creates the cycle and I know from myself, each project that I did, that I put out there has been invited more of the same. The first years and years of doing that work never made money much not paid for itself, but now it is become kind of the backbone of the practice that I have in, it invites more of the same and hopefully come to the point where you can be more discriminating about the work that you wanted to do, but it is a challenge and I think it is important to think about.