Art Galleries are not the only place to show your artwork. Please also consider:

Restaurants
Gaming/Hobby Stores
Fabric/Furniture Stores
Banks
Dentist Offices
Lawyer Offices
Book Stores
Clothing Stores
Jewelry Stores
Schools
Libraries
Churches
Universities
Etc.

Consider for example if you were a artist living in Boston and you made artwork which frequently featured blind Lady Justice holding the scales of balance. You could, potentially, donate art pieces to both Harvard and Wellesley, to law offices, to financial institutions and an assortment of other places. Complete with frames and a bronze plaque of your name and assuming your artwork was "good enough" to be taken seriously by the time you were done you would be a local celebrity insofar as Boston is concerned. Lawyer graduating from Harvard or Wellesley would be interested in buying your art.

Historically artists have always had a 2nd job such as a printmaker or as a craftsman before their career takes off. [link]

Building a reputation is one of the hardest things an artist can do these days. You have to stand out and work hard at promoting yourself constantly. You can't just wait to be "discovered" because it doesn't work that way in the art world (it may work in show business or the porn industry, but not in visual arts).

To build a reputation you need your artwork to be out there, and more importantly people have to be WRITING about it. People going "Hey dude, I like your art." is not going to make you a professional artists. Hobos on the street drawing with chalk get comments like that. To build a professional reputation you need people talking about your artwork in newspapers, in art journals, and in highschool and college essays. Eventually your artwork might even appear in movies or documentaries.

Two of my proudest moments was when my artwork was shown in an art documentary about Cindy Sherman, and also a separate documentary about censorship in the United States. I've also been talked about in several art magazines, and as a result I now sell my works for thousands.

But my advice to other artists out there is this: Don't wait for fame to come to you. You have to grab it by the balls and not let go. Get your artwork out there because if you never show it anywhere no one will ever talk about it.

Sincerely,
Charles Moffat