Norm greeting artist on the way up, say (7)
I believe the answer is:
average
'norm' is the definition.
('average' can be a synonym of 'norm')
'greeting artist on the way up say' is the wordplay.
'greeting' becomes 'ave' (I've seen this before).
'artist' becomes 'ra' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'on the way up' says the letters should be written backwards.
'say' becomes 'eg'.
'eg' back-to-front is 'ge'.
'ave'+'ra'+'ge'='AVERAGE'
(Other definitions for average that I've seen before include "nothing special" , "Arithmetical mean" , "Run of the mill" , "Normal amount" , "Mean, so-so" .)