About Us
Art Forearm is a biannual online publication dedicated to the labor and material intelligence of art as evidenced through processes, tools, and techniques. We support artists in sustaining their practices within the precarious economies of the present moment while envisioning possibilities and solutions for the future of our field.
Each issue (2×/year) investigates the material, ecological, and social infrastructures that shape art-making today, foregrounding accessibility and sustainability.
How We Work
We publish on Substack, which means each issue unfolds as a series of posts released over several weeks—deep dives, features, interviews, and reports from the working world of artists.
All content is free to read on the site. If you click Subscribe now, every post arrives in your inbox (still free), so you don’t have to remember to check back in.
If you choose a paid subscription, you directly support our ability to commission and pay contributors according to W.A.G.E. standards. You won’t be skipping through paywalls, but you will be establishing your solidarity with the labor behind the writing, research, craft, and editorial care that go into each issue.
What We Publish
Every issue has a unifying theme, explored through recurring features we think of as the moving parts of the publication. You can expect a mix of materialist, hands-on, infrastructural, matter-of-fact, situated, and artist-centered perspectives. Here’s some examples of the kind of material we produce:
Material Deep Dives
Close examinations of a single material—its histories, geologies, technologies, failures, contradictions, and future potentials.
Technique Case Studies
Process-forward conversations or investigations with makers whose technical mastery reveals something larger about labor, embodiment, and care.
Studio Profiles
Inside looks at how artists or collectives organize their studio as a living ecosystem—materially, economically, and relationally.
Global/Indigenous Craft Lens
A feature that highlights non-Western or Indigenous material traditions, emphasizing continuity, innovation, and community sovereignty.
Critical Essays
Reflective or theoretical pieces that link materials and making to broader cultural, ecological, or political questions.
Toolbox
Practical, material-oriented guides that help artists navigate technical, logistical, or safety challenges in their work.
Practice Notes
Short essays or reflections from working artists sharing strategies for sustaining a practice under real-world conditions.
Money Talk
Candid Q&As about the actual economics of creative work.
Materials Watch
Brief updates on shifting landscapes of material availability, toxicity, sourcing, or innovation.
Accessibility Audits
Essays or guides focused on accessibility innovations in studios, exhibitions, fabrication, or publishing.
You can also expect monthly editor’s picks, calls for contributors, and behind-the-scenes updates about how the publication is made and sustained.
What You Get When You Subscribe
Free subscribers get every post, delivered directly to your inbox.
Paid subscribers get the satisfaction of sustaining artist labor and the knowledge that you’re helping us pay writers fairly.
Everyone gets access to the full archive and to a publication that treats art-making as intelligent, embodied, and materially entangled.
Who We Are
Art Forearm is edited by a working artist with a volunteer editorial board of artists, scholars, and writers who weigh in quarterly, help maintain rigor, and occasionally send each other internet memes and music recommendations.
We’re here to be in conversation about process, labor, invention, and the intimacy of making things in community with one another.
We Want You
If you’re also interested in the materialist, hands-on, infrastructural, matter-of-fact, situated, and artist-centered, we’d like you to join the conversation. If you’re looking to be part of a community that respects humanity, rejects cynicism, and finds humor in the hard work of making things—you’re in the right place. Welcome!
Want to contribute? ➡️ Check out our submission guidelines
Want to know how we handle rights + permissions? ➡️ It’s all right here
Want to support artists getting paid? ➡️ Subscribe, baby, subscribe!
Want to invite others? ➡️ ➡️ ➡️ ⬇️
