About
We are a design research studio that develops didactic media, exhibitions, publications, and other forms of intellectual property for artists, nonprofits, and creative businesses.
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Staff
Wyatt Coday
Senior Researcher
wye@nor.la
Evan Kleekamp
Operations and Development
evan@nor.la
Client Services
Product and Publication Development for digital, print, and subscription products.
Ghostwriting for business plans, grant proposals, fundraising and emial marketing campaigns.
Business Management including lead generation, coaching and consulting, triage and austerity audits, strategic communications, web portfolio development, and competitive research.
Statement of Purpose
We pride ourselves on the quality and thoroughness of the investigations we develop for artists and creative businesses who seek to grow their enterprise and repair their relationships to money, power, labor, and personal identity.
Unlike many art professionals, we encourage artists to develop fully integrated businesses that hold no illusory distinctions between artistic expression, studio practice, commercial labor, and business administration.
This means conducting audits, interrogating financial objectives, setting measurable goals, and preparing our clients to advocate for themselves — and their businesses — with confidence while also supporting the development, production, distribution, and sale of their artwork.
In our view, this integrated approach represents a movement toward transparency and financial stability in an industry that is widely disingenuous, opaque, and exploitative.
It is also an optimistic gesture that demonstrates our commitment to advocating for artists who seek to make an independent living through their creative practices.
Statement of Method
We describe ourselves as a design research studio because we use research methodologies to define and counter the structural inequity and economic disenfranchisement that plague the arts.
Our artworks extend our research practice. To date, they have taken the form of grant proposals, photographs, sculptures, catalogue essays, legal interventions, lecture performances, and recorded conversations. We also advocate for what we described as “post-institutional” business models that allow artists to diversify their sales portfolios.
Rooted in the core of our approach is our belief that artists must reconcile their relationship to money if they want to have uninterrupted time to produce their work.
Statement of Equity
Artists with nontraditional backgrounds are encouraged to contact us for specialized consultations. We proudly work with and support neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and otherwise economically marginalized groups.
studio@nor.la
newsletter
MONEY WOES
INTEGRATING STUDIO PRACTICE AND THE BUSINESS OF ART
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MONEY WOES is an intermittent seminar that demystifies the basic business concepts artists and creatives must know to grow and sustain their creative practices.
The seminar illuminates some of the basic aspects of self-employment including business incorporation, tax strategy, intellectual property, and self-advocacy. After examining why business and entrepreneurship frighten some artists, conversation will turn to real-world experiences — not advice! — and anecdotes from other working artists who have navigated career leaps like drawing income from a mix of both employment and freelance commissions, renting an office space, hiring lawyers and accountants, delegating work to assistants, and separating personal and business finances.
Sessions and Tickets
INTEGRATING STUDIO PRACTICE AND THE BUSINESS OF ART
+
MONEY WOES is an intermittent seminar that demystifies the basic business concepts artists and creatives must know to grow and sustain their creative practices.
The seminar illuminates some of the basic aspects of self-employment including business incorporation, tax strategy, intellectual property, and self-advocacy. After examining why business and entrepreneurship frighten some artists, conversation will turn to real-world experiences — not advice! — and anecdotes from other working artists who have navigated career leaps like drawing income from a mix of both employment and freelance commissions, renting an office space, hiring lawyers and accountants, delegating work to assistants, and separating personal and business finances.
Sessions and Tickets
NOR RESEARCH STUDIO, BLOUSE, 2021. Digital scan featuring a check payment from the Project X Foundation for Art and Criticism signed by its executive director, Shana Lutker, who drew a smiley face above the memo line. The payment, to contributor Evan Kleekamp, was for the inaugural X-TRA Online Dash column about Cameron Rowland and his exhibition, D37, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Below the check is an apologetic note from Lutker received at the same time. Curator Eric Golo Stone withdrew his contribution to a completed interview upon learning he and Kleekamp would have to split X-TRA’s $200 contributor fee. From 2014-2021, as executive director of Project X Foundation for Art and Criticism, Lutker was the publisher of X-TRA. She previously served on the editorial board as the publication’s managing editor from 2004-2014.