Encore

Yippee! I've sold two paintings. 

And launched an "encore" career.

I'm heartened as well to learn "it takes only a few people to make a career," according to New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz.

It takes as few people as 12:

• One dealer who pushes your work and "who’ll be honest with you about your crappy or great art."
  

• Six collectors. "Even if you have only six collectors, that’s enough for you to make enough money to have enough time to make your work."
  
  
• Three critics "who seem to get what you’re doing."
  
  
• Two curators "who would put you in shows from time to time."

"Surely your crappy art can fake out 12 stupid people," Saltz says. "I’ve seen it done with only three or four supporters. I’ve seen it done with one!"

It doesn't take a village to succeed.

At Jasper Johns' very first show, the Museum of Modern Art bought three of his works. The artist also landed on the cover of ARTnews.

Elizabeth Peyton’s breakthrough show took place in an empty room in the Chelsea Hotel, where visitors could see 21 of her charcoal-and-ink drawings. 

"According to the hotel ledger, only 38 people saw the show after the opening,'" Saltz says.

"It doesn’t take much."

Today Peyton's works sell for a million dollars. 

Painting by Bob James