About

Bec Brittain founded her studio in Brooklyn in 2011, designing and producing the critically-acclaimed SHY light.The studio moved to Manhattan in 2016, and to Long Island City in 2019. Bec designs and engineers all her products, which are the expressions of her own ideas, rather than being market-driven. All her designs are made in New York, using a variety of techniques and a network of local fabricators and artisans, and every piece is assembled by hand in the studio under Bec’s supervision. Bec prefers to run a small-scale studio – crossover and cooperation insure that everyone has a role in everything, creating a strong and tight-knit team. For Bec, this hands-on method is equally effective for projects both small and large, and for both production pieces and custom projects. While Bec deliberately chooses not to have a large company, her studio has the expertise and experience to execute projects at many scales, including large, site-specific commissions.

Bec Brittain

Our Statement of Principles

Annual Profit Share

In addition to periodic auctions/sales to support efforts towards birth justice and ending cash bail, we are committing to an annual contribution towards those same efforts equal to or exceeding 15% of annual profits. We will continue to support National Bail Out and Ancient Song Doulas, and will begin to support Black Mamas Matter and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

Our Team and Hiring

We have deliberately changed the manner in which we publicize job openings to widen the net of applicants for jobs, as we can’t hire a diverse group of people if we aren’t receiving a diverse group of applications.

We do not require any particular schooling for a position, as we firmly believe that learning on the job is just as valid as any academic approach, and often more so.

We endeavor, whenever possible, to pay a living wage as calculated by MIT (https://livingwage.mit.edu/). Whenever that is truly not financially feasible (after an honest self audit of where we place worth and value), we commit to offering the position to the candidate at the highest wage we can afford, and brainstorm with them about possibilities of making the position work for everyone.

Our Relationships

As a small studio, we are only as strong as our relationships, and some of our greatest power is in who we decide to work with. We decided at the inception of the studio that keeping trades and craft alive in the USA was one of our main tenants, and as such all of our main workshops are local (within the NY/NJ area).

As we continue to develop as a studio, we have done an audit of our supply chain, and have eliminated any vendors who are publicly racist. We commit to searching for BIPOC owned vendors whenever possible, and anti-racist vendors whenever possible.

Our Internal Relationships

Ensuring we practice what we preach within our studio relationships every day is debatably the most important part of this commitment. As we are only a 4-5 person team, we are hesitant to write unwieldy policies that create more meetings than help and understanding. While we all believe that our internal communication regarding respecting each individual’s quality of life is functioning well, we would like to institute some self-checks. We are working as a group to decide what those will be and will update this document accordingly.

Our Accountability

I, Bec Brittain, have been using “we” throughout this document because I am poignantly aware of how dependent I am on my whole team for this studio to function and create work. However, I would like to take personal accountability for the principles outlined above; I realize that as the leader of the team, if I do not embody these principles to the best of my ability, it impedes my team’s ability to do so. I also realize that responsibility is ultimately with me to create an atmosphere where we can live out these principles.

This document and the efforts in it are a perpetual work in progress. Fundamentally, we are committing to continually seeking a path towards ending White supremacy delusion. We are aware this work is never ending and we will make mistakes along the way. We commit to keeping on going.

Custom Work

Bec Brittain’s studio executes projects at many scales, from customizing existing products to designing one-off, limited-edition pieces and site-specific commissions. These have included everything from a light fixture for a vestibule to a large-scale installation for a corporate headquarters. Please get in touch with any inquiries.