For the slow labor of realizing a potential gift the artist must retreat to those Bohemias, halfway between the slums and the library, where life is not counted by the clock and where the talented may be sure they will be ignored until that time, if it ever comes, when their gifts are viable enough to be set free and survive in the world.
Interpretation
Artists must take time away from societal expectations to develop their talents in a space that fosters creativity, often facing neglect until their art is ready for the world.
This quote by Lewis Hyde emphasizes the importance of artists immersing themselves in environments that encourage creativity, rather than being bound by the restraints of conventional life. He suggests that true artistry often requires solitude and the ability to work without immediate recognition, highlighting that talent may take time to mature and be appreciated by society, which can occur only when the artist's work is deemed viable.
In practice
In a discussion about the challenges artists face in society, this quote can illustrate the necessity of retreating for creative growth.
All that we make and do is shaped by the communities and traditions that contain us, not to mention by money, power, politics, and luck. And even should the artist or scientist think she has extracted herself from the world to stand alone in the studio, a tremendous array of faculties and mind-states may well attend her creativity.
Unlike the sale of a commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved. When gifts circulate within a group, their commerce leaves a series of interconnected relationships in its wake, and a kind of decentralized cohesiveness emerges.
Better to operate with detachment, then; better to have a way but infuse it with a little humor; best, to have no way at all but to have instead the wit constantly to make one's way anew from the materials at hand.
But neither money nor machines can create. They shuttle tokens of energy, but they do not transform. A civilization based on them puts people out of touch with their creative powers.
Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.
An essential portion of any artist’s labor is not creation so much as invocation. Part of the work cannot be made, it must be received; and we cannot have this gift except, perhaps, by supplication, by courting, by creating within ourselves that ‘begging bowl’ to which the gift is drawn.
The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an artist, not just a diarist. So I put myself through a kind of apprenticeship in writing poetry, and I understood even then that my practice as a poet was deeply related to my reading.
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.
There are those photographers who have made a whole career doing commercial work but have never had a museum show, and then there are others who've only had museum shows but couldn't survive for five seconds in the real world of photography. But I've done absolutely everything.
Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
Art is the easiest thing in my life, and that's ironic. It doesn't mean I've worked little on it, but it's the only thing I never had to... I have no fear. I could take risks.
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