"Do artists ever get agents?"
I think a very few manage to, though it seems more common in the milieu of modern/abstract art than in the area of traditional realism. Art agents are (I believe) something you see only in large metro areas... on the coasts, I would guess.
Gallery artists rely on the galleries to promote their work, and pay a hefty commission, but it can be worth it. Roll an agent into the mix, though, and the art has to be priced high off the bat just to cover all the commissions.
And to land a gallery (or an agent), one has to spend some significant time establishing a body of work and a reputation. One can spend a long time in that twilight area just on the cusp of professional success.

Dear Tim J.,
You wrote:
What I, and most studio artists, need is somebody like Herb Tarlek to go out and do the leg work for us, so we can have time to make art. That, or we have to dust off our own plaid salesman jacket and white shoes and learn to market ourselves. Most artists struggle with it.
Do artists ever get agents?
The Chicken

"So . . . what's the technical term for the kind of section that The Christendom Review did with your work? Is it a retrospective, a gallery, a toozenfluffit?..."
I was surprised to find that, bizarrely enough, it actually IS called a "toozenfluffit". "Tooz" from the Middle-English (I believe Chaucer is credited with coining the phrase "two's company" - this denoting, in modern publishing nomenclature, more than one image in a spread). Then, the editor may decide to "fluff it out" with additional pieces, so "toozenfluffit" means roughly "two or more" pieces in a layout.
.....
I really don't know what they call it... I'm a notoriously ignorant self-marketer, and the dark interior paths of the publishing industry are a mystery to me.
What I, and most studio artists, need is somebody like Herb Tarlek to go out and do the leg work for us, so we can have time to make art. That, or we have to dust off our own plaid salesman jacket and white shoes and learn to market ourselves. Most artists struggle with it.
Thanks to you and Heather for the kind words. I feel most confident in my still life work, but I think branching out and trying new things is good for my work all around. I really want to do more in the way of figure/portrait. I have some saint paintings in the works.
Stay tuned!

Congratulations Tim! Your artwork is beautiful, I especially liked the still lifes.

Kewl! Congratulations, Tim!
It's neat that they featured as many different things of yours as they did. It was a nice mix of landscapes, still lifes (still lives?), and portraits.
They all have their challenges, but I especially like what you do with light and texture in the still lifes (lives?). I was also impressed by the 3-D effect you were able to do on the moving water in Rain Swollen Creek (over on your daily painting blog).
So . . . what's the technical term for the kind of section that The Christendom Review did with your work? Is it a retrospective, a gallery, a toozenfluffit? I'm not quite sure what the right word is.
Any help?
Congrats again!