At a recent dinner party, my host, an engineer with a poetic soul, shook his head over Poetry Magazine’s good fortune. "Let's just hope," he said, ferrying plates off the table, "that they don't squander it."

Squander it? Whatever could he mean?

In order to succeed in your career some financial investment is usually necessary, and the career of the fine artist is no exception: art supplies are expensive, art schools can be astronomical, and finished works may have to be framed, crated, shipped, and insured. There are outlays for postcards, postage, portfolios, brochures, slides, and even perhaps a website. And then there's the question of vanity galleries.