For the past few weeks I have been slowly pouring over a book that has been on my list for a while, "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde.  The copy I have, a gift itself from Kester, is a hardcover UK reprint of this work exploring the concept of "gift economy" (compared to the "market economy" that pervades all of modern and especially American" life).  I am a few chapters in and while I am far from being able to offer any sort of review, I want to blog bits and pieces of Hyde's words that strike me as thought-provoking, dead-on, challenging, or otherwise intriguing.  So here it goes:

"Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master.  That is to say, most artists to art by art itself.  The future artist finds himself or herself moved by a work of art, and, through that experience, comes to labor in the service of art until he can profess his own gifts.  Those of us who do not become artists nonetheless attend to art is a similar spirit.  We come to painting, to poetry, to the stage, hoping to revive the soul."  – p.48