If you are not ready for a shopping cart definatly don't waste time setting one up, since it requires maintance for updating products and inventory.
If your kid sets things up pretty good you should have no trouble updating things yourself. Sounds like you really need a gallery. There is a lot of free software out there for galleries. I love Coppermine, it is an open source (free) gallery, chances are your kid can install it and set it up for you, once set up to your liking it would be easy for you to upload pictures and add descriptions to your gallery.
Here is the website for coppermine:
http://coppermine-gallery.net/index.php
Here is a site of mine that uses it:
http://www.broadwaybeads.com/gallery/
Just having a web presence to tell people about or even put on your business cards and flyers is a great thing to have, even if you don't sell anything. It lets customers remember you and gives them a way to bookmark you and contact you later.
As for what to have on your site, a showcase/examples of your work, and great bio about yourself, your work your studio etc.. people really like to read that!
Do have a gallery or news section or something that dates your work, people want to know the site is still active and that you are still current, so having updates with the date on them I think is good. If you used a gallery like the one I suggest it would show dates when you uploaded new photos.
Definatly research the hosting company, have your kid help you as well, things like the gallery I suggest require certain things be available from the hosting company, most offer those things, but some really cheap hosting solutions do not. So decide what you want on your site as well before choosing a company to host.
Good luck!
-Marie