As in Tai Chi, artists should gain from their losses, Tom Otterness explains.

Question: What’s your advice to aspiring artists?

Tom Otterness: Uh-hmm… Wow! Well, the fact that you should persevere is the advice. I mean, how you do that? God knows, you know. You have to be really resilient and… Huh! My mind goes on ten directions with it, but for me it’s been, it’s been important to yield under those kind of larger forces and… Huh. I have a… Well, there’s a saying this invest and lost, it’s… my Tai chi teacher is saying and it’s the gain from your losses, and I think that’s a way to sort of progress, you know, to sustain yourself and keep going and there’s a lot to it. You can learn a lot from all the losses that you will inevitably encounter. There’s a lot you can learn in there, so, well, that keeps me going.