Art Before Commerce

I was recently mentioned in this Observer piece about custom-published books. Excerpt below:

When a book isn’t designed solely with big publisher sales channels in mind, the design can also become more daring, more niche, and uncompromising. Production decisions are not subordinated to mass trade distribution, experimentation is welcomed, and creative thresholds expand. The cover of a forthcoming visual culinary memoir replicates a classic French bistro dish towel, or torchon. Such creative risks would typically be sacrificed for institutional uniformity at a legacy house, yet they are exactly what core audiences embrace. And the book’s title? Chickens Don’t Fly perfectly encapsulates the book’s message and its unconventional publishing journey. This trend is reflected in the 2025 State of Art Book Publishing report, which notes that while trade-distributed art titles have seen flat growth, “limited-run, studio-led” editions have grown by 30 percent in market share—suggesting that collectors are pivoting away from the mass-produced in favor of the rare and the resonant.

In an era defined by direct access, cultural authority will no longer belong solely to the institutions that distribute the books, but to the creators who own their narrative. The emerging atelier model reclaims authorship over both the economics and the archive. When artists control the margin, they can reinvest in craft. When they control the distribution, they can cultivate intimacy with their patrons. And when they control the narrative, they transform a book from a product into a cultural artifact. In the coming decade, the most valuable arts books will not be the ones with the widest distribution. They will be the ones closest to the source—objects that function not just as publications but as uncompromising testimonies of an artist’s vision.