"How, if art is essentially a gift, is the artist to survive in a society dominated by the market? Modern artists have resolved this dilemma in several different ways, each of which, it seems to me, has two essential features. First, the artist allows himself to step outside the gift economy that is the primary commerce of his art and make some peace with the market. Like the Jew of the the Old Testament who has a law of the altar at home and a law of the gate for dealing with strangers, the artist who wishes neither to lose his gift nor starve his belly reserves a protected gift-sphere in which the work is created, but once the work is made he allows himself some contact with the market. And then--the necessary second phase--if he is successful in the marketplace, he converts market wealth into gift wealth: he contributes his earnings to the support of his art."
--Lewis Hyde from The Gift
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