How does an artist carve a niche? I see so many opportunities out there for protest art. Cartoons and graphics are invited for submission. Here is your big chance! Speak to the world with your art! And artist after artist pour their heart into a creative blast of visual poetry, good enough for a tee shirt at a beer festival. Submit it to the latest website free for the looking. I just about fell into that trap until my dryer broke the other day. I thought "hmm, why don't I put out a "call for dryer repairman" notice. The repairmen could submit a visual of the work they had done for the neighbor down the block and then I would evaluate it, zoom in on the photo to see if the screws were done correctly, etc. Somehow I couldn't even imagine them or any professional submitting examples of their work and then paying the entry fee for the judges to look at it. Yet this is what we ask of artists. Artist don't have as much business sense as they have artistic talent. They continue to hand over their works free for the slightest affirmation. Artists happily decorate the walls of a coffee shop for free in hopes of selling one or two. As they continue to do this they devalue all artists' talents. Even if it keeps them happily creating it won't pay for the next tube of paint nor the dryer repairman, unless he will take a protest painting in exchange. My guess is that it is not his style.