In 2008, Nevada artist Candace Nicol began the 6Sides2EveryStory project, which encourages artists all over the globe to examine a newsworthy in collaboration through the printmaking medium. Six artists carved six different perspectives towards the news article picked for each block into each of 100, 2-inch cubes of wood.  Candace printed the blocks and their individual 6-paneled narrative images as they were returned to her over a 2-year period of time.

As a participating artist in 6Sides2EveryStory, I enjoyed working with 5 other artists in my community on block #91: “Abandoned Owls Blamed on Harry Potter”.  Some blocks were carved by a group whose members already knew each other, and some blocks were shared across communities. In January 2010, the first exhibition of 100 finished blocks and prints opened at Western Nevada College, where it remains on view through February 25, 2010. In this interview by Laura Berman, Candace answers some questions about the overall 6Sides2EveryStory project and its results.

What was your inspiration for the 6Sides2EveryStory project?

I had been organizing print exchanges and I really wanted to do something that could potentially include people that might not know that much about printmaking.  I really was searching for a collaborative project that was different from the traditional exchange, something that I might not be able to control much after I set up the basic parameters. To do something like this, I had to organize a project that wouldn’t cost a lot, would be easy to “move” around the globe, and would not require special tools or techniques.  I first thought of woodcuts or even linoleum puzzles pieces.  When I was searching for the wood, I came across these 2”x2” cubes.  I’m sure that in my mind, the history of exquisite corpse triggered the idea – Hey, what about creating little narratives with 6 artists and one news article.  This was in late 2007 and early 2008 when I was thinking about this.  There was a lot of interesting news surrounding the presidential race and as a consequence, important social, economic and environmental topics were being debated.  The concept of 6sides just fell into place.  Once, I wrote the prospectus, I distributed copies to artists at the Virginia Commonwealth SGC Conference.  The first artists came from that initial contact.  I also sent out the information to everyone on my email list, hoping that the information would be forwarded to new people.

Where are you now in the trajectory that you have laid out for 6Sides2EveryStory?

The cubes are finished and the editions are printed.  I still have to send prints to the final participants.  See… part of the project was that I gave something back to the artists that carved on the cube.  Also, the prints visually connect the images with the artists and the story… so everyone has a memento of the project.  I also have to finish the book for the project and update the website and blog…and….find more exhibition spaces.

What are some of your favorite starting points for the cubes? Which are your favorite finished prints?

Some of my favorite starting points were the stories picked by students.  WHERE did they find these stories?  My all-time favorite is the story of the man arrested for receiving sexual favors from a car vac (cube #50).  A student in my class found that news article.  He was so shy and thought we would all make fun of him for picking it, but the class just LOVED it!  Another cube that really emphasized the spirit of this project was cube #9.  Melanie Yazzie started the cube and she included her 10-year old niece who carved the net image on the cube.  That cube was one of my favorite finished prints because while printing, I was soooo proud of myself for getting the subtle details to come through.  My other favorite final print is “Busy Bees” (cube 64) started by April Vollmer.  This cube took on some interesting perspectives and the artists really documented their thought processes, so I think I ended up having a strong connection to it because I knew what each of the images signified.

Cube # 9 It’s Official: Caribbean Monk Seal is Extinct.  Story Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25007277 Artists: Melanie Yazzie (CO), C.Maxx Stevens (CO), Maggie Goat (OK), Triston Myna Baldwin (AZ)

What did you learn about the printmaking community through this project?

How thankful I am to be a part of it!  Seriously, there is such a tremendous energy in the printmaking community that would allow for a project like this.  Everybody involved in starting a cube has very busy lives and they still found time to work on this.  The cube starters had the challenge of not only picking out a story that everyone could work on, but also having to motivate 5 other artists into finishing their sides of the cube.  Many cube starters couldn’t do it and the cubes came back unfinished.  This was one of those “I couldn’t control the outcome” circumstances.  It worked out great because I had individual artists email me and want to carve a side but didn’t want to start a cube.  Some examples of this were cubes 2, 44, 71, 86, 89, 93, 94.  Also, I learned how democratic the printmaking community is.  This project had so many different kinds of people involved, many who were not even artists, let alone printmakers.  Everyone accepted the project as one that was about connection, not technique.  Some of the cubes are rough, carved out with cheap carving tools or knives or whatever was available, while others were carved with precise engraving tools.  But it didn’t matter when all the prints came together because it represented how unique we all are and how individually, we could each contribute to a woven tapestry that in the end would document how wonderful it is to exist a world of such diversity.

Why is it important that 6Sides2EveryStory manifests in print form? How does the printmaking process add to this project’s dialog and collaboration?

It was important that I print the cubes so that all 6 sides could be shown in a narrative format.  If we just left the carvings and tried to display the cubes alone, some sides would be covered.  The other component was that I wanted to be able to give back to the participants who took the time from their busy lives to carve these cubes.  Trust me, the cubes were not easy to carve into.  They were awkward to hold down while carving.  There were too types of wood circulating, too.  Some of the cubes were made from a hardwood and the others were made of softwood.  The artists who ended up with the hardwood needed really sharp tools or engraving tools.  The wonderful aspect of printmaking is the multiple, that each artist could have a finished print.  A lot of the participants, especially the ones that were carving the first sides, would not even know what the end result looked like if we didn’t print the cube.  In the beginning of the project, I would get a cube printed and then post it on the blog and people who had carved a side would be amazed at the final print.

Cube #11 Gray Thunder.  Original News Source: An excerpt from article by Cyril Christo, May/June 2008  Orion Magazine Artists: Jill Fitterer (ID), B. Love (ID), Denise Lauerman (ID), Zachary Haight (ID), Marissa Keith (ID), Melissa Stephenson (ID)

Did 6Sides2EveryStory intersect with your teaching at all? If so, how were your students/classes involved in this project?

The students are a big component to the project, especially for me and for Sharon Tetley, Printmaking Professor at Western Nevada College in Carson City.  This project was perfect for getting students between the two colleges to collaborate, both printmaking students and art foundation students. For three semesters, we had students contributing.  I know that many other “cube starters” are professors and they included their students in the project, too.  It was a chance to get students involved in one of the most important aspects of printmaking, that of collaboration.

How important is community to the 6Sides2EveryStory project and to your own work?

I think that so much of my own art activity is centered on attempting to connect artists.  At the same time as 6sides, I had been working on a big collaboration involving all kinds of artists across states for 2009 Burning Man project www.commd.org and now, a collaborative project involving artists from Northern Nevada and Southern Nevada www.geographicaldivides.blogspot.com. Working in Nevada….not a lot of printmakers, so we have to find ways to connect with one another and to connect to printmakers from other states.  For me personally, 6Sides2Every Story inspired me and kept me going as a printmaker.  During this project, the economy took a nose-dive and I found myself not being able to afford to go to SGC or to other conferences, but because of the cube project, I still had a connection to other artists and printmakers around the globe.  I’m grateful for that.

What is your best advice for someone thinking of beginning a project of this scope?

The best advice – if you have an idea and you think…. “I can’t do this”…. DON’T think that way and believe in your fellow printmakers, they will amaze you!  Have a lot of patience and do everything in little steps but stay persistent.  There was a time during this project that I wanted to just give up, but I knew I would disappoint the artists that had already committed to the project.  Also, sometimes, projects take a long time to complete, but if you just keep at it, the project will be a success…maybe not what you envisioned at the beginning…. but the outcome will be interesting non-the-less.

Which contemporary artists are most engaging to you?

As far as printmaking, I just love John Hitchcock’s work and how he connects with students while creating installations.  I have always loved his use of the multiple in three-dimensional forms.  Another artist/printmaker who does that is Jennifer Anderson in California.  I’m also attracted to her work because she references the body.  Okay, so my all time favorite artist?  Ida Applebroog, of course.  Bold, distinct, fragmented narratives, and no fear of unveiling the taboo.

If you were not an artist, what would you be?

A high school art teacher…oh wait, I was that for a while.

What is the question that I should have asked?

Oh, I do want to add:  The news stories were such an important aspect to the project and I really thought the majority of cubes would be about the election.  Instead, it was interesting to see that most people were concerned for the environment.   The actual election, which was dominating the news at the time, was not the primary inspiration for stories.  Oh…and what is with the fascination over cows?  There are soooo many cow images in this project.  One story, too, is about cows being killed by lightning.

Cube #95 Just Another Week on Earth.  Original News Source: Harper’s Weekley, May 20. 2008, Weekly Review, By Chantal Clarke Artists: Linda Katzdorn, CA; Dan Samborski, CA; Katherine Venturelli, CA; William E. Kubow, CA; Nolan Winkler, NM; R.Wm. Winkler, NM

So, this is really interesting:  Over 100 cubes went out.  A lot were MIA.  Some were never started.  But what is really incredible is that we got 90 back.  The total count was 95, but 5 are missing in the sequence.  So… the last cube’s story title is “Just Another Week on Earth” started by Linda Katzdom in California.  This is such a fitting story to end the cube project with.  The original story goes like this:

Harpers Weekley

May 20. 2008

Weekly Review

By Chantal Clarke

A 7.9-magnitude earthquake centered in Sichuan Province, China, left 50,000 dead and 5,000,000 homeless. Outside Beichuan Middle School, where 1,000 students and teachers died, parents waited for the bodies of their children to be pulled from the rubble, lighting a single firecracker each time a body was found. A married couple lay under their workers’ dormitory for 28 hours, their limbs crushed and entwined. “I tried bending my neck against the wall to kill myself,” said the husband after being rescued. Three minutes of silence and three days of mourning were observed throughout the nation, and the Olympic Torch relay was suspended. “Other people who know their relatives have died can call this a memorial day or a funeral,” said a farmer named Wang Hongchen, who wandered the ruins shouting his son’s name, “but not me yet.” Predictions of a powerful new earthquake sent tens of thousands of Chengdu residents rushing to the streets in panic. A three-day period of mourning was also declared for 130,000 dead or missing victims of the cyclone in Myanmar, where the country’s military junta, under protest by the United Nations, continued to turn away much foreign aid. As oil prices reached $127 a barrel, President George W. Bush pleaded with Saudi Arabia to increase pumping, but was rebuffed; he also told Middle Eastern leaders that their economies would not be successful until they gave women equal opportunities. “This is a matter of morality,” he said, “and basic math.” A 19-year-old college freshman was elected mayor of Muskogee, Oklahoma. “Right now I’m between girlfriends,” said John Tyler Hammons, who is president of both the Young Republicans and the Young Democrats at his university. “I’m looking to fill that position.” Cherie Blair revealed that her husband, ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, had announced her miscarriage to the press in order to deter speculation about an early invasion of Iraq and perennial U.S. presidential candidate Alan Keyes declared that he represents, “in political terms, the abortion. You’re invited in, but they kill you.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said that Karl Rove had a week to appear before the committee. “Someone’s got to kick his ass,” said Conyers. House Republicans began using a new slogan, “the change you deserve,” which turned out to be the slogan of the antidepressant Effexor. The California Supreme Court struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage, surprising legal experts because six of the seven judges are Republican, and the Vatican’s chief astronomer said that it’s not a contradiction of faith to believe in aliens and that we may have intelligent, God-created “extraterrestrial brothers.” Morehouse College in Atlanta named its first white valedictorian. “I support him and his mission to be successful in life,” said a junior. “I just kind of wish he had done it at a different institution.” The invasion of tasteless Chinese truffles threatened the primacy of the European Perigord black truffle, and billions of hairy, reddish-brown “crazy Rasberry ants” (named for a local exterminator) were swarming through the greater Houston area. “They have nowhere to go, just running crazy wild,” said one resident. “You know what it’s like to sit down on the commode with crazy ants running everywhere?” U.S. Air Force pilots were testing the Advanced Mission Extender Device, the result of a $5 million program to replace unhygienic “piddle packs” with a system that converts urine into a gel. Los Angeles was considering whether to turn its raw sewage into drinking water.

Robert Rauschenberg died at the age of 82, and the former head of UCLA’s cadaver program was indicted for selling over $1 million in body parts. Natascha Kampusch, who prior to the recent emergence of the Josef Fritzl case was the most famous Austrian to have been imprisoned in a cellar sex dungeon, felt compelled to buy her once-captor’s house so that it wouldn’t be torn down or vandalized. The Pentagon announced that it will build a permanent 40-acre detention complex in Afghanistan to replace crumbling Bagram prison. “This place,“ explained a military official regarding Bagram, ”was not made to keep people there indefinitely.” Curators at the Museum of Modern Art pulled the incubator plug on a tiny coat made of living mouse stem cells after it grew too fast, and scientists at Cornell University created the first genetically modified human embryo. At an NRA convention in Kentucky, Mike Huckabee made a joke after hearing a noise off-stage. “That was Barack Obama,” he said. ”Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.” A poem written by Obama in 1981 was discovered and republished:

Under water grottos, caverns

Filled with apes

That eat figs

Stepping on the figs

That the apes

Eat, they crunch

The apes howl, bare

Their fangs, dance,

Tumble in the

Rushing water

Musty, wet pelts

Glistening in the blue.

- – -

More about Candace Nicol:

Candace Nicol has a MFA from Boise State University and a BFA from University of Nevada, Reno. Candace is a co-founder of the Northern Nevada Printmakers’ Conspiracy which presents works in national and international collections. She has been awarded the distinguished Nevada Arts Council 2009 Artist Fellowship, a Sierra Arts 2008 Artist Grant, and received an honorable mention from the quarterly magazine, Printmaking Today. | candacenicol.com »

Links: www.6sides2everystory.blogspot.com

In the midst of our dilemma, a member from our own board made a very generous proposal.  He offered to match funds donated by other members of the Board of Directors up to one-thousand dollars through the end of January. We sent out a fundraising challenge letter, emphasizing the importance of all board members participating, no matter how great or small the contribution.  I am accustomed to this type of fundraising campaign from within, because the private school I teach for asks for all staff & faculty to contribute to the school’s fundraising.

Obtaining 100% participation in this fundraiser would both create an immediate solution to help meet our financial crunch for the Annual Exhibitions of 2010 and 2011 and offer us the opportunity to mount a larger effort to solicit additional funds from a wider group of donors, indicating that the board has already stepped up to meet some of the critical financial needs we foresee over the next two years.  (I have been told contributors are more likely to donate their own money when members of an organization appear to prioritize funding themselves).

In our letter, we did not ask for any specific amount of money from our board members.  And, we will not be publicizing who contributes and who does not. Soliciting them for donations is highly irregular, since we are a board of volunteers that already gives up a tremendous amount of time and energy serving the needs of the Honolulu Printmakers; as such we have had several complaints from within our board.  Financial issues always have a way of striking an especially stressful cord.

Since hearing of this fundraiser, a private donor outside the organization was impressed enough to make a sizeable donation to the Honolulu Printmakers.  And many of our board members responded quickly.  I believe we already made the $1000 to be matched.  This new fundraiser has already helped to ease the immediate financial needs of our organization.

I invite any comments on this idea or other fundraising options that have worked for organizations with which readers and other blog contributors have been involved.  Perhaps by sharing these options, we can make sure all of our arts organizations stay afloat in this slow economy.

In addition to two intaglio presses and a Vandercook SP15 proofing press, Pickwick has a silkscreen exposure unit and washout room as well as plans to expand its space to house yet more equipment in the works, including a large format relief / intaglio press and a hydraulic press Pixley is currently researching plans to build. (These folks are handy!) The mission statement offers a bit more specific info: “Our goal is to connect artists and printmakers with the incredible network of artmakers in the area, with the press acting as a well-appointed hub that turns print making into a collaborative event. The offering of facilities include, intaglio, letter press, silkscreen, darkroom, large washdown sinks, acid tanks, large work areas, some personal storage, and an assortment of hand tools. Programming will include tiered membership, workshops publishing opportunities and one on one assistance with your projects.” In addition to the peaceful space, comraderie with similarly serious cohorts, and carefully maintained equipment, members derive benefits that include the chance to exhibit work during the Artist’s Studio Building’s frequent and well-attended open studios nights.

As this post goes to “press,” Pickwick Independent Press still has some openings for new members to complement the community they have established in the brief time they have been open. You can download the application form here. If you don’t live in or near Portland, move here, or consider Pickwick’s model and start your own communal print studio wherever you are.