STILL LEARNING

How can we develop a publishing model
that ethically supports authors and collaborators
within a hyper-capitalist society that thrives
by dividing, exploiting, and subjugating
the people within it?

We have begun our work from the stance that capitalism is unsustainable and that total ethical systems cannot survive within it. We believe that so long as money and profit is held above the wellness of any person—with great inequity on the bases of race, class, gender, ability, or any mode in which one can be othered—humanity cannot thrive. Our work has been an attempt to build financial and social support systems that work against these inequities, toward a system that reverses this disproportion.

Acknowledging that capitalism will not collapse in a singular moment, we have engaged in realistic business modes that favor artists and employees as an attempt to create community dynamics in which commonplace business models (built upon labor exploitation and white supremacy) can more easily be seen as inhumane as they are. We imagine an arts publishing industry in which choosing exploitative practices is also a choice to become irrelevant as a community resource.

We have published the work of those who are not only under-supported but are often disproportionately exploited in their career pursuits and lived experiences. As a grassroots project, we have been able to operate and spend money in accordance with these values without permission from a board or investors. Because accumulating wealth was not a priority of our business, we have been able to offer immediate support to our authors and staff. We are aware that our approaches to the inequities of publishing have been imperfect, but our focus remained on meeting the needs of artists, and adjusting our structure and processes accordingly—as we are yet again with our transition into the Candor Collective. We are still learning.

From commission-based work, to published projects, to facilitating sales and acquisitions, our collective efforts have been rooted in support of our authors and collaborators. These published projects always derive from human experience and often address issues and traumas of injustice within contemporary society. We did not operate as a medium-specific publisher; instead, we supported authors from a diverse range of approaches, backgrounds, and training.

We deeply value art’s ability to transgress boundaries and grant us access to vulnerable human experience—therefore, intimate beauty and detailed craftwork have been important facets of our design process. For these reasons, and the ability to control means of production without possessing lots of money, most of the books we have published are hand-crafted.

We believe artist books are great vehicles for sharing complicated emotional ideas and personal experiences that may be very different from those of their readers. Despite ethical, moral, political, and cultural differences, we believe our editions compel each reader to hold these objects with some degree of thoughtfulness.

THE PURPOSE OF CANDOR ARTS
HAS BEEN TO:

—PROVIDE PUBLISHING OPPORTUNITIES IN WHICH:

• Artists are not required to pay anything in order to be published

• Artists have total control of the content included in their books

• Candor Arts leads the book design process in collaboration with the artist

• All profits are shared equally after production costs are met with sales

• Artists keep all rights to their work

• Trust, respect, and communication are central to the collaboration
  

—EXIST AS A MEANS OF FURTHERING EQUITABLE SYSTEMS.

• Prioritizing the wellness and support of authors and staff above profit

• Actively shifting the structure of this project toward equitable systems for artists

• Prioritizing authors disproportionately exploited and disenfranchised by our society

• Publishing as support for the lives and work of Black artists, Indigenous artists, and artists of color

• Publishing as support for the lives and work of LGBTQIA+ artists

• Publishing as support for the lives and work of artists with disabilities

• Publishing as a force against white supremacy

• Embracing our flawed existence and rejecting ideals of mastery or excellence

• Redefining ideas of success that do not perpetuate division, subjugation, and exploitation of people

• Further normalizing and amplifying equitable systems for artists’ by partnering with aligned organizations

  • Sming Sming Books

  • L’Louise Foundation

  • Sixty Inches from Center

  • at land’s edge / Memory and Resistance Laboratory

  • Annas

  • Naranja Publicaciones

  • Marz Brewing / Lumpen Magazine / Public Media Institute

  • PATRON Gallery

  • WORK / PLAY

  • Dais Books

—EVOLVE AS PEOPLE IN COMMUNITY WITH ONE ANOTHER.

• To make equitable decisions against competition and individualism

• To collectively find ways to exist in support of one another

• To embrace and learn from our ongoing changes and failures

• To honor and learn from the communities we work with

• To care deeply for those who entrust us with their work

• To take responsibility for the work we produce and its influences

FUNDING + ACCESS

After 5 years of publishing through this project, we had cumulatively provided more than $600,000 in up-front financial production support for published authors, as well as additionally provided nearly $300,000 in the form of artist payments from sales.

The artists’ publications have been collectively acquired by a network of over 150 institutional libraries worldwide.

In this map below, you can see the libraries, special collections, and bookstores that have acquired our work (black), as well as our co-publishing partners (dark gray), and people we have collaborated with on events (light gray).

LABOR + STRUCTURE

Candor Arts was not a non-profit business, but a Limited Liability Company—Partnership registered in the state of Illinois. Therefore, we were generally ineligible to receive grants. The money that we awarded to published artists was generated through our labor.

When the production studio closed in August 2021, Candor Arts shifted into the Candor Collective.

how candor arts came to be

This project began as a response to identifying exploitative relationships between institutions and the artists they represent within the field of arts publishing and the arts industry at large.

Through conversations with many peers and mentors who had been published, our decision to operate as a publishing entity was specifically to offer artists an alternative to the common self-sacrificing aspects tied to arts publishing, such as:

—the author needing to contribute significant amounts of funds
—censorship, relinquishing control of content and/or possession of rights
—the publishing institution disproportionately profiting from the artist’s labor

We have held the belief that our institutional support for artists cannot end with representation or “exposure,” but that artists deserve possession of rights, creative agency, and financial equity in the experience of being published. This is why we maintain that no artist needs to pay upfront costs for any published project, all profits are split exactly equally, and the artist retains rights and control of the content and context of their published work.

After a year of existing as a bedroom project in L.A., Candor Arts officially began with Matt Austin in Chicago, when the business was legally registered in the Summer of 2016. The team expanded first with Katie Chung the following October. Melanie Teresa Bohrer joined unofficially in March of 2017, and Hannah Batsel joined the team December 2017.

By March of 2018, Melanie was a co-owner of Candor Arts with Matt.

The four of us made up the core team of Candor Arts and together we produced over 5,000 books by hand between August 2016 and February of 2020 (additional production assistance in critical times of heavy production included Justin Nalley, Lauren Zallo, Molly Berkson, and Devyn Mañibo).

As the global pandemic began heavily impacting businesses in March of 2020, our project was not prepared to withstand the financial impact and consequently, we were no longer able to continue employing Katie and Hannah as our production staff. Amidst the ongoing pandemic, our project was moving at a much slower pace—and our team was then only Matt and Melanie.

candor arts since the global pandemic:

After the arrival of the COVID-19 global pandemic, Candor Arts was run by Matt Austin and Melanie Teresa Bohrer—two self-taught bookbinders interested in the power-shifting capabilities of artist book publishing. Their mission was to continue to evolve through this work, and commit money, labor, time, and resources to invest in artists dedicated to uplifting communities who have been disproportionately harmed and exploited within our industry and society. In most cases, this would involve the authors sharing their own personal narratives of learning and healing from traumas they have endured. Each book was a collaboration built on trust and a willingness to be open and learn from one another. Through learning about the life and background that informs the work of each artist, Matt and Mel guided the design process while the published artists retained full control of the content that exists in the book.

In March 2020, Candor Arts began to restructure, shifting into the Candor Collective.