From chandeliers made of test tubes to cathedrals constructed from crutches to pictures made from beach debris, artist Cheryl Nickel really has done it all. Over the years, she has used a variety of unusual objects to create her art, and she continues to display them in unique and creative ways.

But Cheryl’s creativity extends far beyond the studio door. In addition to dedicating herself to making art, she has committed a lot of time, energy, and resources to making a space within her community where artists of all mediums can flourish together. Joining forces with fellow artists Bob Leathers and Chris Warr, and with lots of help from the broader community, she co-founded Space 4 Art, which opened to the public in 2010.

Designing Differently

Cheryl didn’t exactly make a beeline for the art world. After graduating high school, she studied all kinds of subjects before settling on art. “I was intimidated by art then,” she said recently. “I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I started out as a political scientist, but I gradually was drawn to the arts.” After several stints at various community colleges, she spent a semester in Vienna. “I met some really interesting artists who were all from the East Coast. They were writers,” Cheryl said, citing novelist John Irving as one prominent writer she met in Austria. After her semester abroad, she decided to attend college on the East Coast, ending up at Cornell University.

After graduating from Cornell with a master's degree in Landscape Architecture, Cheryl took her artistic career in a new direction. She started making art with found objects.

“I use various objects and give them new meaning,” she explained.

Cheryl’s piece, “Individuals,” is on view June 3-18 at Space 4 Art’s Mesa Gallery exhibition. PC Cheryl Nickel.

Cheryl’s use of found objects is on view at Space 4 Art’s Creating in Community: A Group Exhibition, at Mesa College Art Gallery from June 3-18. Two of her works, using objects and detritus found at San Diego area beaches, are included in the show— an intimate yet wide-ranging survey of work by Cheryl and S4A co-founder Bob Leathers alongside offerings by 14 current S4A resident artists. To learn more about the show, please click here.

A socially conscious artist from a medical family, Cheryl has long been inspired to look for ways to incorporate medical objects in her work. An early version of Cheryl’s medically inspired work developed after she got wind of about 1,000 glass test tubes that had been donated to a science museum but remained unclaimed. Seeing their potential as art material, she used them to create a beautifully detailed “Mandala.” She still has some unused test tubes and is looking for new ways to deploy them in her art.

“Mandala,” test tubes and plexiglass. PC Cheryl Nickel.

Other medical appliances also pop up in her art. For her “Gothic Cathedral,” a gorgeous 9x6 foot construction made of crutches, x-rays, and test tubes, she again united the medical and the spiritual. “I used x-rays on the dome, because they illuminated the human body,” Cheryl said. “It's all about illumination, and that's what Gothic cathedrals are about.”

“Gothic Cathedral,” mixed media. PC Cheryl Nickel.

Cheryl’s work with medical objects is represented in the Allied Craftsmen group exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art, through August 18. One piece, titled “Aha! Chandelier,” is a metal chandelier draped with glass test tubes, and wired with a motion sensor; when someone walks under, it shines. Cheryl describes the work as “a lightbulb moment— Eureka!”

“Aha! Chandelier.” PC: Ron Sanchez @blushfilms.

Community is Inspiration

Such an “aha” moment arrived not long after Cheryl and her husband, international architect Bob Leathers, moved to San Diego. Through conversations with local artists and art students in the masters programs at UC San Diego and San Diego State University, Cheryl began to focus on a growing problem in San Diego— the lack of affordable artist housing and work studios. “I got to know a number of artists there, but they all decided that they couldn’t afford to stay in San Diego.” One of those students, Chris Warr, suggested they look at warehouses to create studio space, and Cheryl immediately knew that Bob would be intrigued by the project.

After a long search, the trio found three contiguous warehouses in the East Village. Chris began contacting architects, volunteers, artists, and art supporters, and they came up with about 200 volunteers. “We had volunteer work days, where people came and put up the walls to create studios for 35 artists,” she says. “It took a couple of months, but it got done, and artists started moving in— and artists who were at UCSD and San Diego State who wanted to stay in San Diego started working down here.” Space 4 Art was born.

Volunteers were part of a “community build-out” that created studios, offices, galleries and a performance space for S4A.

Led by Cheryl, Bob, and Chris, and dozens of other volunteer administrators, curators, board members, and DIYers, Space 4 Art soon thrived. “The most rewarding part has been interacting with a variety of different artists, not just visual artists, also performing artists, musicians, dancers,” Cheryl said. The original galleries and outdoor performance space provided invaluable opportunities to showcase the work of up-and-coming artists. An example is Chris Warren, a musician and longtime work-live artist at Space 4 Art. “He was getting a PhD in music at UCSD, and eventually, his girlfriend Ariana (who was also getting a PhD in music at UCSD), moved in with him, and they got married here.”

Founded to claim space for artists, Space 4 Art has nonetheless struggled to survive as property values and rents have skyrocketed. In 2017, the warehouses were sold to a new owner, and Space 4 Art lost half of its indoor space, almost all of the outdoor space, the galleries, classroom, and the iconic stage Bob designed and built out with a crew of volunteers.

Performances of all kinds took place on the outdoor stage that once graced Space 4 Art’s parking lot, before being lost to gentrification.

Despite— or perhaps because of —all her hard work, Cheryl continues to be frustrated with the lack of artist studios and housing available. An expensive city that bills itself as an arts and culture mecca, San Diego has yet to prioritize affordable housing for the artists and musicians who make the arts scene so vibrant. “(City leaders) haven’t provided a way for artists of all types to stay here, so many of them have left. They move to LA, or they go back east,” Cheryl noted. “So the frustrating thing is trying to keep spaces here affordable, or at a reasonable rate.”

Endless Possibilities

Despite the challenges, Cheryl continues to work hard on the problem of affordability, even as she experiments with her art practice. To Cheryl, there are no limits on creativity. She is constantly brainstorming and thinking of new ways to manifest her imagination into physical art. Most of her work contains intellectual content, which circles back to her incorporation of medical devices in her art. Recently, she has been reading more about DNA and the endless possibilities that come with genetic engineering. “I’m going to create some imaginary creatures, and talk about how DNA creates those creatures.” She also plans to experiment with concrete, a new medium for her.

“When I’m not making art, I’m thinking about art,” Cheryl said, adding, with a laugh: “And, to be honest, I do go to the beach a lot.”

“Great Wave of Plastic” is on view June 3-18 at Mesa Gallery. PC Cheryl Nickel.

Special credit goes to Kaya G., a junior from High Tech High, Chula Vista, who was our office intern in May 2024. She interviewed Cheryl and co-wrote this blog story.

Cheryl Nickel: Making Art and Making Space 4 Art