David Shrigley - I think that art school is an incredibly expensive service given what you actually get from it, particularly today. When you go to art school, if you’re buying a service that costs that amount of money, you’re entitled to expect a lot in return for it, but increasingly I think art schools are run by people who want to make money, rather than to be altruistic and to teach their students something special. In retrospect, I think you could do an art foundation course and not do a degree, and then be an artist’s assistant, and have a studio and be around other artists.

I think it’s very important to keep the faith, and to be resiliant. It’s really not a career that you can do to pass the time. There are two many hard knocks, and the people who you go to school with end up being twenty eight-year-old doctors and lawyers, and you’re riding a bicycle, and you don’t have a girlfriend. People will tell you you’re rubbish - people still tell me that. The only important thing is that you want to do it - you’ve got to really like making art and talking about art, and being an artist.

My advice is to get a website, and keep making artwork. If you stop doing it, you’re lost. But if you’ve got something really special and interesting - and that takes a while - it will find a place.

Don’t give yourself a target - you don’t have to have done this or that by the time you’re twenty-seven. There’s no set path. You can start when you’re 50, and do something very interesting and very important. And you can stop when you’re twenty and start again when you’re 40, and that’s fine too. Don’t think too much about success or money, because you will find a lot more reasons not to do it than to do it.

Do what you do at your own pace, and the good things will find a place.

Doris Salcedo - Art school is absolutely essential. It’s a huge field of knowledge, and you have to know it. Even though my studio classes were disappointing, you learn to apply what you are learning in your art history to your own work, and I believe that’s so important. I don’t think your brain and your hand can go in separate directions, you have to be able to do both, that’s what counts.

I believe the most important thing is to be truthful to what you want to do, to your work, no matter what, no matter which obstacles you encounter on your way. And everything outside your work should be left in somebody else’s hands, museums, dealers, critics, press, they all play a role, but that’s completely independent to the task of the artist.

Sue Webster - I think it’s important to retain that artistic angst – that element of doubt and discomfort. There are so many opportunities now, that I wonder if that’s lacking among many younger artists. Are they asking “Is this good? Will this be successful?” Try to keep that doubt, you need to be questioning everything all the time.

One of the best pieces of advice I was given is to really leave art school – I mean leave the city. People often hang around at the art school after they’ve left because they don’t know what else to do, but you need to start life somewhere else. I moved to Bradford where I rented a really cheap flat and studio.

Michael Landy - Young people have bigger expectations and quite often it’s probably quite unrealistic. When I started hardly anyone worked with a young artist, but now people think it’s over if they don’t sell work in the first couple of years. It happens to people at different times of their lives. So be patient, I know it’s hard.

Anya Gallaccio - If you want security and something regular, it makes much more sense to become something else. The artists who are the most interesting to me are the people who keep their integrity and don’t modify what they do for the sake of financial stability. We all have our moments of dazzling - but the test is continuing regardless of who is paying attention.

Be true to yourself and resist pleasing the market. It’s easy now to make things that look like art, but actually making art is a totally different thing.

If you are going to do it - then do it - don't sit around waiting for something to happen/ to land in your lap - make your luck and get out there.

Jonathan Monk - People who really want to go to art school should go – it doesn’t matter whether they’re good or bad. You take your A Levels at 17 or 18, and the art education you get to that level is not really similar to what you get at art school. Afterwards, hang out with lots of other artists, go and work in an exhibition context, and something will turn up.

Susan Hiller - There is absolutely no point in becoming an artist unless it’s the only way you can express yourself creatively. If you can be a writer, or an illustrator, or something else to express yourself, do that instead, because being an artist is not an easy life. It is a last resort – there’s no other reason to be an artist other than you simply have to do it, and for me, it was the only option.

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