Candor Arts

Candor Arts was a publishing imprint and hand-made book bindery that began unofficially in a spare bedroom in Los Angeles in July of 2015, and became a registered LLC in the State of Illinois in August of 2016. At its height, Candor Arts was run by Matt Austin, Melanie Teresa Bohrer, Katie Chung, and Hannah Batsel. Throughout the years, we received generous support from many peers—without their skills, guidance, and support for our vision, many of our projects would not have been possible. In five years, we published and funded 52 editions—providing over $600,000.00 in production cost funds, and paying over $300,000.00 in cash payments to the contributing authors. These editions have been collected by over 150 institutions worldwide. Candor Arts officially closed in August of 2021. Since, we have been building the structure of the Candor Collective—a holistic support system for arts workers.