Gwyneth's Full Brew

Potted Palms and Sand Tarts: A Bookish Tea at the Plaza

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:16:00 +0000

Cup of the Day #105

Loose Leaf by Gwyneth Leech

Colored ink on upcycled paper coffee cup

My sister, Kitty Leech called the other day and said, "do you want to have afternoon tea to celebrate?"
"Celebrate what?"
"The launch of the Mermaid Picnic."
Awesome! Kitty's fishy children's tale of a rainy afternoon at the seashore, which she wrote and illustrated, was a work is progress for ten years. Now it had finally met the public.
And not only had it launched, but it got a lovely write-up on the blog Wide-Eyed and Legless: Musings of a Modern Mermaid.

The Mermaid Picnic
Written and illustrated by Kitty Leech

So this called for a major celebration, a really special afternoon tea. We decided that the Plaza Hotel was definitely in order!

A few days later, there we were, in the fish bowl which is the Palm Court, at a beautifully laid table trying to choose a tea. This is the renovated Plaza, of course. I was here for afternoon tea one other time, as a college student a decade or so, or so, ago and it had a faded air back then. But since the doors reopened in 2008, all is brilliant and regal, the stained glass ceiling magnificent, the table settings and service immpecable. I felt only the faintest touch of guilt at coming here without my children to celebrate a book for children.

But back to the tea selection. We perused the menu, which proved to be a literary work in itself. How to choose between "a stout and robust blend of February high grown Kenyans and astringent 2nd flush Assam, full bodied and rich" (Breakfast Tea) or "rich and moody off the nose, it opens with malty astringency and finishes with hints of oak cask and a dusting of delicate citrus (Afternoon Tea). I was actually torn between the two Reserve Black Teas: "Golden liquor cups ethereal notes of baking bread, light lingering finish "(Golden Monkey Picked (China)) and the "ultra rare, full round body with light notes of Wuyi Forest Preserve pine smoke". The latter was none other than the Organic Tong Mu Phoenix Tree Lapsong Souchong (China).
I went for Golden Monkey Picked.
Kitty ordered coffee.

Having made these difficult and lofty choices, we turned our attention to the accompanying delights.
Should we go with the Classic, the New Yorker, the Chocolate or the Eloise? This was easier.
They all included cucumber finger sandwiches, scones and pastries. We decided on the Classic.
When it came, I was surprised that the servings were so petite. Sandwiches for very little fingers indeed, and such tiny tarts. We set to with gusto... and only made it halfway through!
But this is New York City. Even at the Plaza Hotel they will wrap for you.

That evening after dinner at home, I set a monogrammed box on the table. "Look," I said, "treats from the Plaza." My two little mermaids never suspected a thing.

The Mermaid Picnic is now my daughter's favorite book. It comes with a recipe for Sand Tarts, the ideal cookie for mermaids on land and sea, and we have successfully made the recipe several times.
Sand tarts are not served at the Plaza, nor is rain drop punch (which apparently Mermaids prefer to tea) but if you bring one with you, she may be able to make do with the "cold cold pink lemonade " featured on the Eloise Tea menu.

For more information about tea at the Plaza, including the full menu, visit the official website here.The Mermaid's Picnic is available on Blurb and Amazon.

Tea and Textility: A Summit Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Tue, 29 May 2012 15:08:00 +0000

Cup(s) of the Day #104

By Gwyneth Leech

Mixed media on upcycled paper coffee cups

As the month of May draws to a close and the temperature starts to climb, it is time for a parting thought of cool Spring. What a remarkably long flowery season it was this year, turbo charged by some unseasonably hot days in March that set everything off at once, then drawn out by weeks of colder weather!

On one chill Saturday of drizzle and daffodils, I persuaded my husband and 8 year old daughter to go with me to Summit New Jersey to catch the exhibition Textility before it closed at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. The exhibition statement read: "while there is a strong emphasis on materiality in contemporary art, we have seen an increasing number of artists who share a specific interest in textile-related materials and processes. We coined the word “textility” to describe these qualities and organized this exhibition to explore art that has a material or conceptual relationship to textiles." This sounded like one the Full Brew should not miss!

Not to mention that an afternoon train adventure is always pleasant, made even more so that day by flowering trees and the blaze of azaleas in Suburban gardens.

Jennifer Cecere, Mother 2011

Ripstop nylon

The art center is just a few blocks from the train station, but oh no! my daughter spied the playground across the street from the station as soon as we stepped outside. My husband and I looked at each other. I went on alone.

At the gallery, I was instantly taken with several highly ornamental artworks in the show - two "doilies", one by Jennifer Cecere, and one by Susan Starr, whose scale and unusual materials made a terrific impression, as did a gorgeous wall of fabric-themed paintings by Barbara Ellmann. In addition, an installation by Derek Melander - three totemic towers of gradated color formed from neatly folded second-hand clothing - was a show stopper.

Susan Starr, Dresser Doily, 2005

Hand-cut Mahogany wood veneer

Derek Melander, The Painful Spectacle of Finding Oneself, 2010

Second-hand clothing, wood and steel

Barbara Ellmann, Wherewithall, 2011,

Encaustic on 12 wood panels

I wandered around the galleries quite happily, finding many surprising and engaging artworks in this beautiful show curated by Mary Birmingham and Joanne Mattera, including a couple of rule-based installations by Debra Ramsay with 3-D elements, a new departure in her artwork.

Finally an awareness of increasing drizzle sent me back out the door and down the street to rejoin the others in the playground. They had preceded me to, well, the only other attraction near the train station - Hilltop Burger and Fries. My reception was a little grumpy, but the tea was waiting.

What kept you so long?

Tea brewing at Hilltop Burger and Fries,

Summit, NJ.

Carly Glovinski

Untitled (dishrag), 2010

Ink, correction fluid on paper

Debra Ramsay

In Two, Twice, with Yellow and Green, 2012

Thread, gauze, acrylic, paint, pins

Textility included:

Joell Baxter
Caroline Burton
Sharon Butler
Mary Carlson
Jennifer Cecere
Pip Culbert
Elisa D’Arrigo
Grace DeGennaro
Barbara Ellmann
Carly Glovinski
Elana Herzog
Marietta Hoferer
Nava Lubelski
Stephen Maine

Lael Marshall
Derick Melander
Sam Messenger
Sam Moyer
Lalani Nan
Aric Obrosey
Gelah Penn
Debra Ramsay
Susan Still Scott
Arlene Shechet
Susanna Starr
Leslie Wayne
Ken Weathersby
Peter Weber

For more photos and description of Textility, read Joanne Mattera's blog here and here.

A calendar of current exhibitions at the Art Center of New Jersey is available here.
Directions to the art center here.

Coffee on the Counter: Cups and Kitchens at MoMA

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:59:00 +0000

Cup of the Day #103

By Gwyneth Leech

Mixed media on Dixie paper coffee cup

Paper cups have a history! Once upon a time there were no paper cups, then one day there they were. In a tangential way, my family history intersects with that of the early paper cup. It was invented by Lawrence Luellen in 1907 and first manufactured in Pennsylvania, my home state. The first commercial use of paper cups was on the Lackawanna and Western Railway as a hygienic alternative to the metal dippers then attached to communal water barrels in each railway car. My great-grandfather, Alfred McCallum worked for the Lackawanna Railway at that very time, and since he was an inveterate tinkerer, inventor and man of progress, I can imagine how much he would have enjoyed their appearance.

Source: Retro Ads and Graphics

Dixie company was in on the paper cup thing early on. In fact, like Hoover and Kleenex and Xerox, Dixie has long been synonymous with paper cups. How fitting then to see that the Museum of Modern Art here in New York City has finally acknowledged the remarkable Dixie paper cup in its current show of everyday objects, Born Out of Necessity, reviewed recently by Roberta Smith.
We had one of those dispenser things in our kitchen growing up. Didn't everybody?

MoMA's design department does this kind of thing very well. I thoroughly enjoyed last year's Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen. The history of kitchen design in the 20th century was beautifully documented with objects, photos and artwork: from early century, awkwardly laid-out rooms which were the site of time consuming activity, to the pared-down and high-tech at the turn of the Millennium.

Moka Express c.1930, Aluminum and plastic

Designed by Alfonso Bialetti, Italian, 1888-1970

My eye was drawn of course to the tea and coffee pots. I was not at all surprised that the Bialetti 1930 espresso pot was included in that show or that it resides in their permanent collection. It is such a beautiful thing - heavy, faceted, sculptural. Many artists love it. They draw and paint it, they animate it. Some even use it to make coffee!

Instructions for Chemex Coffeemaker, 1941

Designed by Peter Schlumbohm

American, born Germany 1896-1962

I was not surprised that a two gallon Chemex coffee carafe was there too. It is a weird beast, a Rude Goldberg coffeemaker that I had never seen in real life. But there it was and a diagram of the heating elements and their correct placement revealed it as the science experiment it appears to be.

Macro Eight-Cup Percolator, 1946, Aluminum

Designed by Edward Condak, American

But I was amazed to see my grandma's 1946 aluminum percolator! It has a designer? Her percolator still sat on the top shelf of a cupboard when my parents finally decided to move out of their big Philadelphia house in 2004, and we threw it away. I can't say I have ever missed the battered thing, but it was nice to see it again at MoMA. And there it is again on the wall of my studio, in a little sketch my mother did of her mother c. 1950, when that coffee pot was the latest thing. I never even noticed it in that painting before! How very Bonnard.

"Morning Coffee", Mixed media on paper

By Louise Gallagher Leech, c. 1950

Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen is over, but Born Out of Necessity is on view at MoMa through January 2013. Go and see that Dixie cup! Certain classic tea and coffee pots are also part of the permanent design collection. And make sure to look closely in the painting and sculpture galleries on the fourth floor. A nod to tea and coffee time will reward you here and there! If you spot the images I am thinking of, let me know.

In Praise of Procrastiwork

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:44:00 +0000

Cup of the day #102

Unfurling Leaves by Gwyneth Leech

Colored India Ink on white Ecotainer

A terrific article called "Procrastiworking Your Way to Creative Success" by An Xiao landed in my inbox the other day. The concept is that we should pay close attention to the things we actually do when we are not doing the things we think we are supposed to do. Drawing on cups is the perfect example! How many hours have I spent utterly committed to this art form while I was in my studio not painting in the traditional way on canvases?! And see where it has taken me - from a casual start with cup and pen at PTA meetings to major public art installations in the heart of Manhattan! These public presentations have in turn led to sales of cup drawings to collectors, to further exhibiton opportunities and to an avalanche of press coverage. The commitment and the passion we bring to the things that really grab our attention - even if those things seem absurd - can take us to fantastic and totally unexpected places!

Cup drawing installation by Gwyneth Leech

in the Sprint Flatiron Artspace, February 2012

800 cups drawings were the fruits of four years of serious procrastiwork

But what happens when one starts to procrastinate the procrastiwork? I admit I have been in a slower mode since finishing a five month stint of intense creativity and public interaction in the Sprint Flatiron Artspace in NYC. I have not been drawing or writing. Instead I have been looking and listening around the city - enjoying the long flowery spring, going to other artists' exhibitions and catching up on some new directions in the art world, meeting friends for tea in the five boroughs, hanging out with my two daughters. In short, it has been a delightful period of re-energizing and I have a lot of new images and ideas to share here on the Full Brew over the next few weeks.

Taking a break to watch the garden grow, April 2012

During this time I have also been studying the 350 drawings and paintings I did on my coffee cups while in the Flatiron - executed in such an intense and forward moving way that I hadn't time before to absorb the wealth of new imagery and directions they suggest. I have been out to Barbara Ellmann's studio again, finishing the cups with an encaustic process and enjoying the opportunity to discuss a plethora of art, life and philosophical topics while I dipped cups in molten beeswax and she worked on her paintings.

Enjoying Spring and unfurling leaves

Clinton Community Garden, April 2012

And in my art studio on 39th Street I am currently designing a new installation of over 600 of the cup drawings which will ship out soon to a Texas museum. Details to come. Still to finish: photographing and cataloguing the cups, mapping the installation, and packing everything ready for art handlers to receive and install. At the end of the day, there is no rest for the weary procrastiworker. But at least we really, really love what we do!

"Procrastiworking Your Way to Creative Success" by An Xiao was posted on Hyperallergic
on April 24th. For the full article Click here.

Tea break in Herald Square, April 2012

A Scottish Interlude: Tea with Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:53:00 +0000

Cup of the Day #101

By Gwyneth Leech

Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

I recently returned from a trip to "the Old Country", visiting my husband's family in Edinburgh and friends from art school days who live in rural Scotland. Everywhere we went we were greeted with the words, "will you have a cup of tea?" I never say no to that. Well, rarely anyway. Ten cups a day or more, and one does start to feel it.

Tea at Fi's House

Kirkbride House, Traquair

Scottish Borders
Everyone in my family reading a book!

I enjoyed china teapots, cups and saucers, milk pitchers and sugar bowls, sitting around a table and talking for hours. For eight days I never saw a text or an e-mail. Slow down, way down, take a walk up a hill in the fresh air.

A walk in the gloaming
Fi leads the way!

Scottish Borders

Conversation veered frequently to wind farms and solar panels, government energy policy, forest restoration, local food sourcing and other light topics. Folks are thinking a lot about global warming in Europe as weird weather continues to rule the day. (According to this Ted Talk by James Hansen, NASA scientist, we need to be thinking about it in the USA too. As in, really thinking about it, right now!) My good friend, Fiona Houston put her money where her mouth is and lived the life of her 18th Century rural ancestors for a year to test the limits of her potential food and energy independence. The experience makes a great read in the Garden Cottage Diaries. (What she missed most: radio and her electric washing machine.)

Snowdrops in the country

February, 2012

Cup collaboration, February 2012

Gwyneth Leech (left) and Sarah McKenzie Smith (right)

Sometimes we also talked about art and I had time for a delightful cup art collaboration with Sarah McKenzie Smith who lives in the village of Blebo Craigs (real place name, not made up, I swear.)

The hill of Blebo is cloaked with a dense forest of green-trunked and lichen-covered gnarly old trees.

An inspiring place to wander.

A walk in the woods at Blebo Craigs

In Edinburgh on my last day I walked far and wide around the city remembering where things were; it has been a very long time since I lived there as an Edinburgh College of Art student. My feet took me to the wonderful Royal Botanic Garden where I spent some time cooking up an installation idea for Inverleith House, one of my all time favorite exhibition venues, right up there next to Wavehill's Glyndor Gallery. Crocuses and daffodils were bursting out in February and I basked in a ray of sun, awed by its ability to warm my face from 93 million miles away. A large number of trees were lost in the gardens in a freak mighty wind storm in January (cue the global warming theme again) but hundreds of fine old trees remain.

My peregrinations through the city resulted in the only two carry-out coffee cups of the week: one in the morning from an Illy espresso bar near Charlotte Square (a striking red and white cup) and at the end of the day, the other from a Starbucks in Lothian Road. I was heading back to my my sister-in-law, Amy's house on the south side of the city but a rather long ride on a double-decker city bus was before me, so I picked up a grande Tazo Awake tea for the journey. Stepping onto the bus minutes later, I was greeted with a firm "NO," from the driver, "you cannot bring your coffee on the bus!" Good heavens! Caffeine, like smoking, banished from public transport! I retreated sheepishly to the Starbucks store and drank my cuppa sitting at a table.

Thirty minutes later I was at Amy's house in the Braid Hills.

"Will you have a cup of tea?" she asked as I came in the door.

"Sure," I said, "why not!"

View of Edinburgh from the Braid Hills

on another afternoon walk, February 2012.

Cup of the Day #100 and Last Call in the Flatiron Prow

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:35:00 +0000

Cup of the Day #100

Artist in her Cups

Photo by Marianne Barcellona

On Saturday, February 18th at 4 pm, after five months, I called “last cups", bade everyone finish their drawings at home and shooed them out the door. It had been a packed house all day. In fact, since David Dunlap’s wonderful article came out in the New York Times, so beautifully describing the cup project and this tranquil and magical art space in the heart of the city, people have been coming in droves to experience it for themselves. One lady said,
“As soon as I read the article I pulled my pants on and ran down here!" I am glad she took the time to put on her pants. Really.

Letting us know it was in the newspaper

Others brought boxes of tea and cookies. A complete stranger came up and pressed the article against the window to show us we were in the Times and then hurried off. A group of students from the High School of Art and Design came in and we invited them to draw. There were fifteen of them and you could have heard a pin drop as they became immersed in their cup drawings.

A teacher from the International Center brought a group of recent immigrants, all learning English. She had taught to the topic of “Gwyneth Leech” that day and each one held a photocopy of the Times article. They asked questions in hesitant English and I tried to explain words like "upcycle" and "encaustic" and "artefact".

International language of drawing on a used paper cup

Hypergraphia in the Flatiron Prow, NYC

By Saturday afternoon it was hard to keep up; so many faces and names, stories and observations, everyone filled with delight. I drank it all in as fast as I could, still thrilled and astonished that paintings on humble paper coffee cups, salvaged from a trash fate, could inspire so much good feeling. My stock pile of cups was diminishing rapidly as people attempted their own drawings and many friends waved through the glass and didn’t try to come inside.

Reflecting on the cup installation

A visitor to Hypergraphia in the Flatiron Prow, NYC

I had two stand-out visits. One was from Cameron, a young autistic man paying his third visit to the Prow, who brought me a rose. Each time he comes he has been delighted by the variety of my imagery and has lingered long studying each cup and describing the scenes and patterns. He has been the most observant of my visitors.

Flowers for the artist on the final day

The second special visit was from my most loyal fan, Maggie aged 3, and her mother Susie. Maggie has stopped by on her way to pre-school every afternoon for five months and waved through the glass. She has been inside several times to draw and has extraordinary focus. On this day she presented me with a bouquet of orange tulips and yellow daffodils, colors especially chosen for me. I was deeply honored.

Then time ran out. From 5-7pm, four of us disassembled the installation to an audience of melancholy faces outside the windows. Then we transported the boxes to my studio where they are now stacked until the next venue, details to come.

A Tranquil Evening at the Flatiron

HYPERGRAPHIA

Gwyneth Leech, the Cup Drawings: Studio in the Prow

September 20, 2011 - February 18, 2012

Photograph by Marianne Barcellona

Prowess: How to Talk to an Art Critic

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Gwyneth Leech Hypergraphia Cup Installation, evening

Prow Artspace, Flatiron Building, NYC

I was outside the Flatiron Prow the other day with my bottle of Windex and paper towels, cleaning finger marks off the plate glass windows. Grown ups often touch the windows when pointing out their favorite cups to each other; kids will press their noses and palms right against the glass. I am not complaining - it is wonderful to have enthusiastic viewers! But Angel, the usual window cleaner, is here just once a month. so I play janitor in between.

Getting a positive review

Renoir girl outside my window.

View from the Flatiron Prow

A man came up to me carrying his takeout coffee (small brown cup, flat lid, wrapped in a napkin).

He asked rather belligerently, "What exactly is the point of this installation?"

I drew breath. He actually looked kind of angry.

"Well," I said, "it is about the inventive potential of the human spirit. The artist has saved all her used paper coffee cups for years and she has drawn and painted on each one by hand. There must be almost 800 cups hanging in there. And each one is a different."

"Oh!" He said, and stalked off, apparently satisfied.

Whew!

And I went back to cleaning the glass.

Angel on a monthly window cleaning visit.

Yes, 60 degrees on February 1st, 2012!

Photo by Caroline Nye

A whole lot of glass to keep clean.

Gwyneth Leech Hypergraphia Cup Installation

Prow Artspace, Flatiron Building, NYC

Spots Before My Eyes: An Open Ended Encounter with Damien Hirst

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:17:00 +0000

A visitor to Hypergraphia at the Flatiron observed, "there is the infinite variety of things, then there is an infinite variation of one thing. Your installation is the latter". I like that a lot! Infinite is out of my reach, but it is true that each time I draw or paint on a paper coffee cup - always the one shape and surface texture - a new image emerges.

Cup of the Day #99 by Gwyneth Leech

Homage to Damien Dot Cup - state 1

Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

This came back to me shortly after I entered Gagosian Gallery on 24th Street to look at the Damien Hirst Spotravaganza on view. At first it was just acres of spots, but as I wandered the huge galleries I noted with appreciation that no two canvases are alike. He too is engaged in the infinite variation of one thing, in this case grids of multicolored spots on pristine white canvas. Principally the colors and sizes of the spots vary, as do the sizes and shapes of the canvases, but within each group of shapes and sizes are further variations. I especially appreciated the different meta-patterns emerging from whites spaces between spots in a set of circular canvases in the rear gallery.

The edges of paintings caught my eye also. Where the spots are huge and sit right at the edges, the canvases seem to bulge and contract. In another room a very long canvas contained the spots on three sides, but cut through all of them on the vertical - spots by the yard!

Cup of the Day #99 by Gwyneth Leech

Homage to Damien Dot Cup - state 2

Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

All of this was interesting enough to take me to the second Gagosian gallery on 21st street. When I walked in the door and saw the same display of large and small canvases, with the same tonal effects of highly pigmented spots on pristine white canvases I was suddenly filled with a feeling of exhaustion. But plunging in I enjoyed the extremes of scale - in some paintings the spots so tiny that I could barely make them out hanging next to one the length of a football field. I also made the fun discovery that when you stand close to the wall the spots turn into rows.

Overall I have to say, I like the spot paintings to the extent that they remind me of those strips of candy dots on white paper that we used to buy as kids! Funny then that some of the spot studies shown in an accompanying book are actually arrays of venoms. Some candy strip that!

Cup of the Day #99 by Gwyneth Leech

Homage to Damien Dot Cup - state 3

Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

At this point, I would love to show you some photos of the spot painting shows, but the security guards said no cameras. I was tempted to photograph the Hirst gift shop through the window on 24th street, where a pile of Hirst coffee mugs was plainly to be seen on a plinth (a colored dot in the bottom of each), but respecting his intellectual property, I returned to the Flatiron window and drew a Damien Hirst homage spot cup and hung it up.

The color swatches on the white background looked all wrong hanging there. So I took it down again and considered. Would I leave all that negative space? Let Damien have it; I would follow the call of the fractal! Before long, a positive lace of smaller and smaller dots encased the cup, knitting it up until it found its proper place amongst the Hypergraphia cup drawings.

Cup of the Day #99 by Gwyneth Leech

Homage to Damien Dot Cup - finished state

Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

This is what I learned form the experience - painting free hand circles of color is hard! If my project of infinite variation involved that kind of pristine execution I would hire a stable of workers too. As it is, my approach has a lot to do with impulse, error and chance - of which there is an infinite amount in the world. It really is an open-ended proposition.

"And for that matter", said my husband, "so is a cup."

Good photos of Damien's spots at Gagosian can be seen on Blake Gopnik's Daily Pic.

And here is a posting of 10 spot reviews over on GalleristNY.

Alice through the Plate Glass: Observers Observed

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:59:00 +0000

Saturday January 21st was a significant day - it marked the start of the final month of Hypergraphia in the Prow. This really is it - the home stretch. No more extensions. In four weeks time, on Saturday February 18 starting at 2PM the cups will come down.

Cup of the Day #98

Down Jackets by Gwyneth Leech

India ink on upcycled white paper cup

In the meantime, Winter is finally here in earnest; down jackets, fur coats and hats abound outside the windows. Wicked winds whip around the Prow, blowing hair to crazy tangled heights.

Cup of the Day #98

Down Jackets by Gwyneth Leech

India ink on upcycled white paper cup

Even in this bitter weather, people stop to study the installation. I enjoy drawing the viewers on cups as they linger, staring in. Then I hang up the cup drawings right away. Now the observers are intently staring out at other people staring in. Something very Alice-like about that.

Snow day in the Prow, January 21, 2012

On Fifth Avenue looking north towards 23rd Street

The heat differential between inside and outside has grown more extreme. The Flatiron's steam radiators lining the Prow hiss and bang, coming on and going off in no discernible pattern. The cups positively dance in swirling drafts and my daily take-out cup of tea cools too quickly after I arrive in the morning.

View of Hypergraphia

From Fifth Avenue, looking east

It finally snowed over the weekend, enough to cover the sidewalks, creating a white frame for the Prow. All of a sudden the white patterns and negative spaces on the cups pop out and look fragile and lacey against the new backdrop. The installation is chameleon-like in that way, responding to the color and light framing it. I wandered back and forth on the platform, re-arranging the middle section. The composition is three dimensional and infinitely variable.

View from the inside, looking north west, towards 23rd and Fifth

So, in just four more weeks, my five month residency in the Sprint Flatiron Prow Artspace will be done and it will be time to dismantle and move on. Until then, in fair weather or foul, in shirt sleeves or wrapped in wool (depending on the heating situation) I will be in the Prow drawing, hanging and rearranging cups, receiving guests and watching people watch me as I watch the world go by.

Inside view, looking north east

Towards Madison Square Park

Coffee with Cattelan and Kandinsky

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:13:00 +0000

As an artist currently suspending my artworks, I have a strong professional curiosity about the Cattelan installation, "All", still showing at the Guggenheim Museum through this weekend. I made it there on a bitterly cold afternoon and was pleased that the much vaunted lines were not in evidence.

Cup of the Dy #97

Kandinsky cup by Gwyneth Leech

India ink on light ochre printed paper cup

Inside, I ambled up the ramp, taking photos along with the other viewers and studying the awesome array of white ropes and heavy slings, metal brackets, platforms and hanging frames. The overall effect is monumental and unforgettable. I peered over the walls of the spiral again and again, taking in the vertiginous views, wondering at the weight of the hanging objects and at my feeling of unease for the visitors standing below them on the ground floor of the rotunda.

Cattelan, "All"

Guggenheim Museum, New York

As for the objects themselves, it is a cacophonous jumble at first, but the eye does take in individual pieces surprisingly well as one's viewing position constantly shifts while walking up and then down the spiral.

Spoiled as I am by my hanging cups dancing in the convection inside the Flatiron Prow, I found the Cattelan installation lacking in animation. Nothing moves, except a wax boy who drums intermittently from his seat on a hanging farm cart. But then, the lack of animation seems to be the point. I felt almost overwhelmed by taxidermied animals, skeletons and wax figures in various death poses. Interspersed is cheerier fare - an elongated shopping cart, the Hollywood sign seen from behind, an impossibly elongated fussball table, an occasional kooky photograph - but the ensemble speaks of mortality and feels like a giant, unwieldy commemorative collage.

I came across an encyclopedic exhibition catalogue on a shelf, which shows each of the artworks in its original setting. In museums and galleries, with space and context they operate quite differently. Did I read somewhere that Cattelan has said he is not going to make any more art? Perhaps then, this giant installation is deliberately a funereal monument.

Seeking something lighter to contemplate, I detoured into "Kandinsky at the Bauhaus", a small exhibit of his paintings from 1923-33, on view in a side gallery. What a pleasure! The Bauhaus period lent a geometric formality to the compositions that is absent from his later work, but the lovely colors and dancing forms look as if they were painted just yesterday. I was especially taken with Komposition #8, a lively painting of straight lines, geometric shapes and bright colors. If the Cattelan installation were transposed into an abstract painting, it might look something like this.

Vasily Kandinsky , “Komposition 8″ (Composition 8), July, 1923. Oil on canvas, (140 x 201 cm) 55 1/8 x 79 1/8 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, By gift.

As if this encounter with Kandinsky were not enough pleasure, I realized that the gallery backed on to Cafe #3, itself a study in lines and shapes against the bare winter trees of Central Park. Who could resist a quick Illy espresso macchiato sipped at a bright white table before a final spin down the Spiral and out again into the freezing afternoon.

Cafe 3, Guggenheim Museum, New York

Catalan runs only through Sunday January 22nd, but the Kandinsky is ongoing, and of course the cafe never goes away. All info. on the Guggenheim website, here.

As a postscript, giving the lie to Cattelan's declaration of artistic cessation, he opens a new art venture in Chelsea in February under the wing of Anna Kustera Gallery. Read all about in this article by Jerry Saltz in New York Magazine by clicking here.

The Cup Drawings by Night

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:58:00 +0000

I have been told that 350,000 to 500,000 people view the Flatiron Building in New York City... every week!

And it seems that a lot of them are taking photographs of the Hypergraphia cups installation in the Flatiron Prow Artspace.

Couple and Cups

Photo by Marc Dalio

Flickr

Out of curiosity, I began to collect photos of Hypergraphia that I came across online - on Flickr, Tumblr, Tweetpics, Facebook, Google+ as well as Statigram and other photo sharing sites for Instagram and cell phone photos.
I was astonished at the resulting collection. So many outstanding images! I love seeing the installation through the eyes of so many different people!

Coffee Cup Bokeh

Photo by Christopher William

Flickr

I am especially intrigued by the night life of Hypergraphia. I have experienced for myself the jewel-like effect of the windows lit on a dark winter evening, but unlike the habits revealed in the time stamps of cell-phone wielding pedestrians, I have never lingered there between midnight and 6am.

Photo by Mark Abramsom

Wall Street Journal

Photo by Osten Zen Design

Google+

In this post are just a few of my favorite night shots.

Coming up in 2012: a museum show of the best photographs of Hypergraphia in the Prow. More details to come, but if you took some photos of the installation in New York City, or know someone who did, be sure to send me a link: gwynethl(at)earthlink(dot)net.
Spread the word!

In the meantime, I continue to draw in the window during daylight hours, Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 2pm through February 18th.

Photo by Richard Kranzler

Photo by Boy Culure

Petra-McKenzie, Statigram

Photo by Danielle

Facebook

Photo by Shoko

Flickr

Experience This! Taking a Spin through the Carsten Höller Exhibit

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:29:00 +0000

Experience at the New Museum finally closes this weekend, but I haven't stopped thinking about it. In fact, some of it popped up on a cup just today.

I saw the exhibition twice, the first time a race through on a Saturday afternoon. I was able to appreciate the whole thing from about five different perspectives and art historical viewpoints without reading a single word. Because I am a genius - not! I had prior help in the form of three distinguished art historians and critics who spoke engagingly and showed slides for an hour in the basement lecture hall at the museum, in a panel talk called "The Wondrous Worlds of Dr. Höller". I listened while covertly drinking a cup of tea and then taking notes on the empty.

Cup of the Day #96 by Gwyneth Leech

Twists and Turns and Notes from Experience

India ink on upcycled white paper take-out cup

Having considered Experience as imminent vs. transcendental art, as a hall of wonders, a clinic for the inducement of elevated states without the use of mind-altering drugs, an embodiment of animal and vegetal architecture, a game of seeing and shifting perspectives, and having explored the idea that the long lines are all part of the show (patterns of procession and unusual social engagement) I now had a firm foundation for threading the crowds upstairs. Thank you Ken Johnson, Spyridon Papapetros and Jesse Prinz!

I delighted in the ascending scale of the magic mushrooms on the ground floor, appreciating their monumentality (Papapetros). When a woman staggered over in strange goggles and asked me to take her photo, Papapetros' words came back again - the unusual social interaction is all part of the show. I happily snapped with her iphone and asked to peek through the goggles that turn everything upside down - altered perspectives without psychotropic drugs (Johnson).

Mushroom Monuments

Carsten Höller Experience

At the New Museum

Upstairs in the galleries - which I visited 2nd, 3rd, 4th to get the overall picture - the famous silver slide burrowed straight through the cement floors! How fabulous. Here was Papapetros' animal architecture of "burrowing, netting and nesting". In the middle gallery I gathered with strangers to exclaim as shrieking figures hurtled past inside the tube. Yes, it was a piece of animated sculpture.

The top gallery housed the entrance to the slide, a hanging sculpture of metal bird cages containing live canaries and a mirrored carousel which inches along in slow motion - altered perceptions again. Bemused viewers dangled their feet and watched the changing reflections, calm and casual in contrast to the anxiety mounting in the line of people nearest the mouth of the slide. Relieved that I had no time to wait for the slide, I just took in the spectacle as an observer. Then I trotted down to the 2nd floor to watch people stagger out into a blinking gallery full of brightly colored animal casts.

Cup of the Day #96 by Gwyneth Leech

Twists and Turns and Notes from Experience

India ink on upcycled white paper take-out cup

Jesse Prinz opined that the feeling of fear produced by the slide changes perception, heightening a feeling of the sublime. Certainly the riders seemed rather changed as they staggered through the gallery after completing their turns, but I am not sure they knew what they were looking at. I did not try the flotation tank, because the line was several hours long, but I certainly did enjoy waving my arms in front of the infrared camera in a side room with other New Yorkers as our regulation black attire was turned to white on the screen.

Mirrored Carousel

Carsten Höller Experience

At the New Museum

In a strange and unusual turn of events, when I got home my 15 year old daughter begged me to take her to see the Höller show. What, she really wants to go to a museum!? Yes, everyone was talking about it at school! So we went together one late afternoon the week before it closed. This time the line for the slide was only 45 minutes long. We joined the end and found it oddly enjoyable to pass the time watching the slowly rotating carousel and listening to the canaries singing in response to the intermittent screaming of people in descent.

Tunnel slide

Carsten Höller Experience

At the New Museum

When it came our turn, as the museum guards gave us helmets and instructions, we were exhorted to be good sports and vocalize on the way down. So we did, gustily, during the 5 second twisting plunge to the 2nd floor. There I got unsteadily to my feet and I have to say, I did find the blinking lights of terra firma to be quite sublime.

We continued on through the exhibit and after exploring every nook and cranny and interactive activity, with and without upside down goggles, I asked my daughter:
"So what is your final word on the Carsten Höller show?"

"Queasy," she replied. "Can we go home now?

Design for apartment building with slides

Carsten Höller Experience

At the New Museum

Where Do Ideas Come From? Finding the Bottomless Cup

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Where do ideas come from? Every time I sit down to write about this I draw a blank.

So I went for a walk, a swim and a hot shower. As usual, these activities of motion unleashed a torrent of wordy narratives in my head, even a concept or two, possibly valuable.

Cup of the Day #95

Raining Words, by Gwyneth Leech

India ink on upcycled white paper coffee cup

For me there are two distinct kinds of ideas - the wordy ones, and the visual ones.

Apparently the visual ideas reside in a completely separate part of the brain from the words and since production of visual ideas generally relies on sitting or standing still, bringing them forth can be a trickier proposition.

When I am painting a large canvas in the studio, it is all about executing an idea already conceived. Discoveries and new directions certainly happen as I go along, but for me the struggle is about how to get the painting to more closely match the images in my head. Having said that, the first brush marks reveal limitless possibilities. Then as a painting progresses and decisions are made these options diminish, until at last only one brush mark will fit. I often feel a sense of loss as I paint. Each state could be the starting point for innumerable new artworks, but unlike in the digital realm, going back to an exact prior state is never possible.

But where does the initial idea spring from, the vision bright enough to launch a painting?

Listening for the muse in the Flatiron Prow

Yes, I think about those cup and string phones all the time!

Photo by Theresa DeSalvio

I was having lunch at Eisenberg's Coffee Shop with composer and singing colleague, Martha Sullivan after finishing up in the Flatiron window and we were discussing the topic. (As a quick aside, there are a number of things I like about Eisenberg's, an unreconstructed lunch counter on Fifth Avenue at 22nd Street: their hot pastrami sandwiches, the owner's flamboyant shirts and the sign outside which says "Either you get it or you don't.")

Drawing with composer, Martha Sullivan

and sculptor, Hu Bing in the Prow

Photo by Theresa DeSalvio

Over my pastrami sandwich, I had a sudden insight. (Yes, ideas also come from conversation + food!) I have been making art since I was a kid and there have been only a few periods in my life when I made no art at all: during my first year at the University of Pennsylvania (no Fine Art major back then), right after I had both my children and after 9-11. I did plenty of writing in those periods, but my visual muse fled and was nowhere to be found. And how did I get back into art-making? By drawing on things that had no apparent value - envelopes, programs, photocopies, music. No one saw these, they weren't meant to exhibited. I did them while I was busy with other things - like taking notes in anthropology classes, feeding children or sitting on the subway. But eventually, these drawings led me back to my sketchbooks and from there to the painting studio. The ideas came pouring out as very small drawings - brain to hand to paper - which I then labored to turn into larger compositions.

Drawing in the Prow

December 2011

Photo by Theresa DeSalvio

The coffee cup story is similar. While my narrative brain was otherwise engaged at school meetings, artist meetings and at my part-time job as a choral singer, my art brain just took care of itself and made friends with the surface of handy paper coffee cups. It crept up on me while I wasn't paying attention. Now each time I sit down with art materials and a cup, the shape, the surface, the curve, the variety of colors and prints, all continue to act as catalysts and set my hand on a new journey. This time, the artwork is finished directly on the cup - no digging things out of notebooks later, no copying and scaling up from sketches which can be a deadening exercise.

Passing Christmas Tree

Cups in the Flatiron Prow

December 2011

Making art on cups is currently the core of my studio practice and for three year now the ideas just keep coming, each one different. Talk about a bottomless cup!

Readily available and of no value to anyone else but me in their used state, paper cups allow me to risk everything. Nothing lost, everything gained. In short, they are a very useful form.

I like to say, Bach had inventions, Shakespeare had sonnets - and I have coffee cups.

Cups in the Flatiron Prow

December 2011

My Date with De Kooning

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:34:00 +0000

I always forget that MOMA is open on Mondays! How many Tuesday have found me there, surprised that the galleries are closed!?

Seated Woman 1, by Stephen Roxborough

Gwyneth Leech's Hypergraphia Installation

in the Flatiron Prow, 2011

But on a recent Monday, my day off from the Hypergraphia exhibit at the Flatiron, I remembered and made it in time for a member's morning with Willem de Kooning. Vigorous stuff before the first coffee of the day! I was lucky to land on a docent-led tour and learned a lot.

Channeling De Kooning

Photo by Stephen Roxborough

Gwyneth Leech's Hypergraphia installation

in the Flatiron Prow, 2011

In the early rooms, a lot of influences are on view: the paintings conjure up Matisse, De Chirico, Picasso, even Hans Holbein in an exquisite pencil drawing of his wife, Elaine de Kooning from 1947.

From there he starts to splinter and jive, the work going in all directions at once, mixing and matching it with figuration and angular abstractions. The black and white paintings knocked my socks off. He could have stayed right there to the end of his days, but not de Kooning.

Willem De Kooning

Untitled, Oil on Board, 1937

Every time he got comfortable with a way of working, he moved on. He never tired of mixing it up between figuration and abstraction, but the how of it kept changing. The history of the female nude in the landscape is joyously reworked in all sorts of ways, for decades.

Willem de Kooning

Painting, 1948, Oil and enamel on canvas

The docent talked at length about the painting "Woman 1", about the two years he struggled with it, how it was abandoned, rolled up in the studio until Myer Shapiro told him how important it was, and how it should be exhibited with the other versions of the "Woman" series. In fact, it was shown at the Sidney Janis gallery in 1953 and made everyone mad. Good times. That's when artists know they are onto something.

Willem de Kooning

Seated Woman, 1940

Oil and charcoal on Masonite

I was especially fascinated by the description of de Kooning's painting process: the sheets of newspaper adhered at the end of a work day to keep the paint wet overnight, the scraping back, the painting wet into wet, the constant reworking of the same canvas, the collage elements pinned on as reference, then removed at the end, of cut out shapes pasted here and there to try things out. All add up to deliberation disguised as insouciant aggression. I know how very difficult this immediacy is to achieve, having killed many a promising start to a painting. Once that initial gesture is put down, how hard it is to change it, how hard to keep the painting open and fresh.

Willem de Kooning

Woman 1, 1950-52

Oil on canvas, 6' 3 7/8" x 58"

On the wall at the entrance to the exhibit are six enlarged photos of the different states of "Woman 1". Fascinating! Each is a complete statement in itself, a painting then scraped away and gone forever. I hurried back and forth between these photos and the finished version. In the final painting hanging on the museum wall he breaks through at last from angularity and Picassoesque cubism to something different - raw, fluid, organic, ugly and irresistible.

Willem de Kooning

Untitled, oil on canvas, 1987

I left the de Kooning show with an overwhelming urge to paint. Seven decades of unbridled art making! I want that too.

Raising a Cup to a Full Year

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:35:00 +0000

What an extraordinary year it has been!

Eighteen months ago, an exhibition of my artwork on upcycled paper coffee cups was just an idea I was brainstorming in my notebooks in the studio. This almost accidental art form had become my principal means of expression and stacks of cups covered in drawings and paintings were mounting up in the studio. But the how, where, when and why of an exhibit of drawings on coffee cups were all question marks.

Cup drawings in the studio, January 2011

In October of 2010, Jerry Scupp, director of the New York Fashion Center, saw my cups in my art studio during the annual NYC Fashion District Festival and was smitten. I told him I had a vision for a window exhibition in the neighborhood. He said he had just the window and urged me to apply.

In December a selection of my cup drawings was exhibited for the first time, in a show called Eat Art at Atlantic Gallery in Midtown.

By January 2011, the details of a window exhibition in the Garment District had fallen into place and it opened in the Window Space for Public Art on West 38th Street in February, presented by the New York Fashion Center and Cheryl McGinnis Projects. Then in the summer, it made a brief re-appearance at Buck House on the Upper East Side. In August, a smaller installation of cups was included in a drawing group show in Cheryl McGinnis Gallery on 8th Avenue.

Hypergraphia, Fashion Center Space for Public Art,

March 2011

Hypergraphia at Buck House, July 2011

On Your Mark,

Cheryl McGinnis Gallery, July/August 2011

Now, over three months has flown by in the Sprint Prow Artspace at the Flatiron Building, with fifty more days to go in 2012. Sprint tell me that 350,000 people see the cup drawing exhibition from the sidewalks and surrounding streets - every week.

Views of, and from the Flatiron Prow, October 2011

Articles and reviews have appeared in a dozen languages on over a hundred web-publications and blogs. Videos and innumerable photos have been posted on every conceivable photo sharing site. There have been impromptu salons in the Prow almost every day with New Yorkers of all professions, visitors from around the world, and eager young people from neighborhood schools and colleges who talk, draw with us and get a brief taste of the unearthly serenity inside the prow, of what it feels like to make art in the midst of this installation as the world swirls by outside.

A late afternoon drawing session in the Prow

December, 2011

An artist friend sent me an e-mail recently which she has allowed me to share:

"Though at a regrettable distance, I'm closely following the Saga of the Coffee Cups with awe and admiration. It's really a story of what happens when one is obsessed with a marvelous, preposterous idea and, despite all logic and reason, doggedly follows it through to its impossible, unattainable conclusion. If someone had said, several years ago when I sat across from you at the NYAC meeting, watching you cover a cup with beautiful lines and shapes, that you would be exhibiting such things in NYC and have write-ups and videos made of the resulting artwork, I would have wondered what hallucinating drug they were on."

Marjorie, I know exactly what you mean. Whoever would have thunk it?!

Hanging more cups, December 2011. Photo by Fran Beallor

A short rest in the studio corner, December 2011.

Photo by Fran Beallor

So with a nod to the improbable possible, the Full Brew wishes everyone a happy and prosperous 2012, and no end of unexpected wonders around every corner.

ROTC lined up to march, Veterans Day, November 2011

Unexpected smiles and a secret coffee cup, Veterans Day, 2011

Season's Greetings from DVF and the Full Brew

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:54:00 +0000

"Where on earth did you get that dress??" I exclaimed the minute Rachel walked through the door for rehearsal a few weeks ago. She was wearing an exquisitely cut, sleeveless cocktail dress in Sienna brown, patterned with bright white brushmarks, each with a dropped shadow beneath. If one of my painted cups had walked through the door, this is how it would look.

Rachel Farrar in the Flatiron window, December 2011

Photos by Gwyneth Leech

"Diane Von Furstenberg, 2010," she replied with a smile. "Great dress, right?"

Absolutely perfect!

Rachel Farrar is one of my all time favorite people; a collegial choral singer, wonderful soloist, fun person with a terrific eye for fashion. She is making her way in New York City as an extra for film and television and has great tales to tell of location shoots, actors and directors. She is a self-proclaimed "proud member of the Screen Actors' Guild". Beyond all that, she has successfully helped me shop for clothes, which makes her a very special person. I am a famously poor shopper; I just have no stamina.

"You have to come to the Flatiron and wander through the cup installation wearing that!" I told her. She agreed to stop by.

In a pleasing turn of the circle, I was in Soho recently on my way to see my friend, Yvette Cohen's exhibition of shaped paintings at Cassina on Wooster Street. Right next door I was stopped in my tracks by a window full of inverted coffee cups, arranged into a Chrismas tree. A nice effect. DVF? Diane Von Furstenberg again! Art, coffee cups, fashion. It's official - paper coffee cups are cool!

DVF window, Wooster Street, December 2011

DVF finally "met" my hand painted coffee cups a few days ago when Rachel did make it to the Flatiron Prow on her way to a Christmas party, wearing That Dress. She threaded her way happily in and out of the cup strands while I took photos from every conceivable angle, from both inside and out, having a high fashion New York moment which was shared by at least a dozen photographers who clustered round the windows. I wonder where those shots will turn up?

When I got home there was an e-mail from another friend attaching a photo of Diane Von Furstenberg's 57th Street window. The coffee cup Christmas tree again.

"DVF meets coffee", she wrote. "Have you seen this?"

"Yes," I replied. "And better yet, I've lived it."

The Full Brew wishes everyone a Merry Christmas. I will be back drawing in the window Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 am - 2 pm, from December 27th until February 18th, 2012.

Sailing Past the Median in the Flatiron Prow

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:09:00 +0000

Cups of the Day #94

Fire Escapes by Gwyneth Leech

Colored India Ink on white, upcycled coffee cups.

I am surprised that it has passed already - the halfway point on my journey in Sprint's Prow Artspace at the Flatiron Building! Favorable winds of goodwill have buoyed us along since September 20th, and the exhibit has been extended until February 18th, 2012.

I must admit, my first day drawing inside a sweltering triangle of glass seemed endless. I paced and peered out the windows in all directions. How was I going to manage this? But a routine took shape and my temporary studio has become an enjoyable and productive place to be five days a week. When I am not there, I think of drawings I would like to do, gestures and patterns to explore.

The artist at work

Photo by Trish Mayo

View from Fifth Avenue, December 2011

I top up the cup stacks daily with my own beverages from the many coffee bars and delis nearby. In addition, friends have donated stacks of their own used cups, each one with name and date on the bottom, and the place they drank the coffee, expanding the record of social moments. I love to take lucky dip and see what color or text comes up from a coffee bar in deepest Brooklyn or Queens that I haven't yet had the good fortune to visit!

Rainy Day window

November 2011

Orchids from Eve and orchid cup

Colored India ink on white paper coffee cup

October 2011

Looking back over the first half of the journey, there are so many highlights: cups reflected in umbrellas during torrential rains, twins in brilliantly patterned rain coats smiling in at me, my hot dog cart so hard to draw, the tricky fire escapes on the buildings across 5th Avenue. Then there was the Bicycle Barber who came to call and gave me and the exhibit's curator, Cheryl McGinnis haircuts, the freakish blizzard that engulfed the Prow before the end of October, and Eve Suter who brightened a dark afternoon with a bouquet of coffee colored orchids in a tall white cup. Not to mention the many great conversations with old friends, and new ones from around the world.

Hot Dog Cart Cup

White-out pen and colored ink on

Maroon printed paper cup

September 2011

Summer styles have given way to winter coats. I spy Santa hats, Christmas trees and giant bags of shopping these days. The trees in Madison Square Park changed to gold and are now a tracery of black branches against the pale stone buildings beyond. The sweltering heat of late summer sun turned to chill breezes inside the Prow. For awhile I sat bundled in coat and sweaters. Finally, the heat kicked on in the ancient radiators, sending the cups spinning in waves of convection.

Freak blizzard at the Prow

October 2011

Nights come early now and more and more photos are posted online, documenting the windows in all weathers and times of day.

Fortified by stacks of coffee cups, ample art pens from Faber Castell, the never ending flow of visual stimuli on the streets outside and the promise of many interesting social moments yet to come, I am looking forward to the rest of the crossing. February 18th will be here before we know it!

Night Photographers, November 2011

to view a Flickr album of other people's photos

of Hypergraphia at the Flatiron click here.

Drawn to Coffee Cups: the Complexities of Keeping it Simple

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:19:00 +0000

Cup of the Day #93

by Gwyneth Leech

White ink and colored India ink

on green upcycled paper coffee cup

Numerous people have remarked at how simple the idea of Hypergraphia is - drawing on paper cups and hanging them up. My reply is, "it has taken me 30 years to get this simple!"

Hypergraphia is not my first go round with upcycling - I was doing it as a young artist living in Scotland. Then it involved collecting truck loads of plastic detritus from beaches and making them into sculpture. (That was in the days before digital photos. Where the heck did I store those slides?)

Now the paper coffee cup says it all. But how did I get there?

Aerial salt marsh views painted on

paper coffee cups

Stacked in the studio, October 2010

In 1999 I moved to New York City. Let's face it, New York can be a tough town for artists. There is so much stimulation, so many museums and art exhibts to see, so many other artists working here, not to mention the roiling sea of the art market that can buffet a person every which way. In the midst of all that it is easy to lose your sense of self and your visual compass.

To counter these currents I decided years ago to keep it local and keep it simple. I would paint portraits of my friends and their families. I did this happily until the complexities of commissions and the fraught politics of representation began to wear. Family portraits were not straightforward after all!

Wall of painted coffee cups

6 feet by 6 feet

In the studio, January 2011

I became interested in a local landscape, of tidal salt marshes along the coast of New Jersey, utterly familar to me from years of summers at the shore. It is the aerial view that intrigues me, first seen via Google Earth. The meandering streams and waterways look elemental, like the circulatory system of the body. Google Earth wasn't enough. I had to see it up close - first from boats, then planes. But it is not so easy to cage a lift on a small plane. Then back in the studio I struggled to get it down on large canvases, my ideas outstripping my time, my resources and my storage space.

Cup Collection

in museum display box with mirrored back

July 2011

Finally, I started to pay close attention to my coffee cups which, in a casual way, had become the locus of an ever expanding lexicon of drawing and painting ideas, including abstractions based on those salt marshes. Started at meetings some four years ago, when paper replaced styrofoam, my image-making-on-cups habit had grown and grown, from stacks in my studio to a small window exhibit on 38th Street, and now to the Prow of the Flatiron Building where I will be drawing and adding new cups to the installation through February 18th, 2012.

I may even have 1000 drawn cups by then!

Hypergraphia Cup Installation

Sprint Artspace, Flatiron Prow

Interior view, December 2011

The exhibiting of the cups has presented its own complexities. I recently found pages of notes brainstorming the installation. I imagined elaborate ways of weighting the cups involving collections of personal items, household objects and even playground sand. Display ideas discussed were shelves, racks, pedestals. Finally the exhibit's curator, Cheryl McGinnis said she saw the cups "hanging every which way" which led to the breakthrough solution - loops on a line. Many different kinds of materials later, I alighted on the perfect weight of mono-filament and just the right kind of loop, reliably knotted yet imprecise enough to orient the cups pleasingly in all directions.

Thus, after many meanders and through a process of trial and error, the seemingly uncomplicated and organic Hypergraphia installation came into being.

Hypergraphia Cup Installation

Sprint Artspace, Flatiron Prow

View from 23rd and Broadway

December 2011

Recently I calculated that Hypergraphia, the Cup Installation has been featured on over 75 web publications and blogs, including articles in Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Turkish, French, Arabic and Macedonian!

All this from the simple paper coffee cup held in the palm of my hand!

Bathed in Gold: Madison Square Park Goes Autumnal

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:57:00 +0000

Cup of the Day #92

Golden Network by Gwyneth Leech, November 2011

White-out pen and India ink on blue coffee cup

From my studio corner of the Flatiron Prow I have been watching for days as the trees in Madison Square Park turn color and spread a back drop of shimmering gold behind my suspended cups.

View from the Prow Artspace

Flatiron Building, November 2011

Photo by Gwyneth leech

I draw the trees every few days and hang the cups so that inside and outside play against each other kaleidoscopically. Add in yellow traffic light boxes and the constant parade of yellow cabs until I feel enveloped in gold.

View from the Prow Artspace

Flatiron Building, November 2011

Photo by Gwyneth leech

Now the leaves are falling and I can see further into Madison Square. From my chair I can just make out one of Alison Saar's sculptures perched in the high fork of a London Plane tree, a glimpse that draws me into the park at the end of my drawing session.

Alison Saar Sculpture, Madison Square Park,

through December 31st, 2011

There balances the black figure, head bowed, hair falling forward, covered with gun-metal butterflies. In an adjacent tree, an arborist on ropes is checking the canopy after a brutal, early snow storm damaged thousands of trees across the city. All seems safe and sound in the high branches and leaves drift down peacefully on Saar's totemic sculptures scattered through the park.

Checking the tree canopy

Arborist in Madison Square Park

Photo by Gwyneth Leech

Circling back towards the Flatiron Prow I bump into my friend Minouche Waring, a painter and glass designer, who lives on 6th Avenue at 26th Street. We go up to her loft to look at her latest glass pieces and drink Pu-erh tea with hot soy milk and Cardamom. My husband and I sublet her loft in 1993 while she traveled in India, our first experience living in New York City. Back then we recall, Madison Square was rat-infested and neglected. Concerted efforts by the Madison Square Conservancy have turned the park around and made it a brilliant showcase for public art presented by Mad. Sq. Art. It is my pleasure that Alison Saar's sculptures will be keeping me company until the end of the year, and that I will see more of them from my perch in the Prow Artspace as the trees go bare.

Alison Saar Sculpture, Madison Square Park,

through December 31st, 2011

Photo by Gwyneth Leech

Art, Cups, NYC

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:23:00 +0000

evagolightly, Statigram, 9.31 pm, 10/23/11

que_serasera, 14PC, 8.39 am, 9/24/1

I knew when I hung my cup art installation in the Flatiron Prow that a lot of people would see it, situated as it is on a major intersection at the very heart of New York City. However, I hadn't really thought about how the current multi-tasking, hyper-connected, mobile public looks at art.

petra_mckenzie, Statigram, 11/11

Typical encounters with my cups go like this: Pedestrians are striding purposefully by, cuppa in hand, ear buds in, talking on their cell phones. They are brought to a halt in surprise by the hundreds of suspended cup drawings scintillating and turning in the windows of the Prow Artspace. They promptly get off their calls, take photos with their phones, apply some filters and load them to the internet right away.

Rula, Statigram, 10/11

A few keywords - #cups #flatiron #nyc- and the photos join a growing online archive on Statigram, Flickr, Tumblr, Tweetpics, Google+, Facebook and other photo blogs of the way each individual sees the installation.

They are consuming their art and making some of their own on the fly!

Selen, 14PC, 10/11

In an essay called Lessons from Social Media, Nick Martin writes:

"Here’s a description of the process Leech goes through with each cup and why:
“Leech saves cups from her drinks — and occasionally from other artists she meets for tea or coffee — washes, dries them and records on the bottom the date, place, occasion, and drink it held, thus documenting the social moment.”

Catch that last part? Each cup documents a “social moment”. Every single cup suspended so delicately in midair symbolizes a personal interaction, an exchange of stories or ideas, a connection with another human being. All of these social moments are then made into art, and displayed to hundreds of onlookers sparking new social moments, ideas, stories, and connections."

Danielle_B, Facebook, 11/7/1

It is exactly as he says! And just as each cup is different, each viewer's photos are unique, sparking their own text-based responses and conversations.

"I love how simple yet magnificent and intricate this is all at once!"

chrysanthacakes, Statigram, 11.49 am, 10/21/11

Where will it all end up? Where will all this connectedness take us? I have no idea. I am excited by the possibilities.

"Contemplating Modern Art in New York City",
chacoan, Statigram, 2.44 pm, 11/1/2011

As I watch it all unfold, there are many cups of tea and coffee to drink and many more drawings to do between now and the beginning of 2012.

See you at the Flatiron. And don't forget to bring your camera - or at the very least, your cellphone.

cattie, 12.37 am, 10/31/11

rmar, Statigram, 5.58 pm, 11/4/2011

Matthew Huie, Flickr, 11/7/11

The Naked Studio

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:36:00 +0000

See the lengths to which we artists will go to make our art?

Ready to work in the Flatiron, Studio in the Prow
Photo courtesy of Cecilia De Boucort

I am an active procrastinator. When my apartment is as neat as a pin, the cutlery drawers sorted, the filing cabinet in perfect order, that is usually when I have a pressing art deadline. When my painting studio was in my home, I became adept at Final Cut Pro video editing, Photoshop, Excel spreadsheets, and writing.

Eventually, I started renting a painting studio in the Garment District in Manhattan with no internet access and no computer on site. My children are in school all day, I had the time to paint seriously and so I did, regularly and productively.

But I grew lonely.

Cup of the Day #91

Twining Vines by Gwyneth Leech

Colored India ink pen on upcycled white paper coffee cup

It seemed like a few committees would balance things out. But my active procrastinator took over and before I knew it two schools, various art groups and a lengthy turn on the co-op board of my building were keeping me from my brushes and glued to my computer again.

Then came the cups. Sitting still and listening at meetings, my hands needed to move constantly and without really being aware of it, my paper coffee cups were covered with drawings. These drawing intrigued me and I followed the thread. The cup form is the same each time, so I gave myself complete permission to draw anything I liked. This way, with pens at the ready, and an inexhaustible supply of something to draw on, I have managed to stay in a highly generative place.

Early morning, Flatiron

The Naked Studio before the artist arrives

September, 2011

Now all that was needed was a way to put art-making firmly center stage, the inviolable fulcrum of my day. My current exhibition at the Flatiron Building, Hypergraphia: Studio in the Prow is the perfect answer. Here I am, in a naked, glass-walled studio right in the center of the city, in the middle of my best and most productive time of day and days of the week. Everyone passing by is making me keep my commitment to my art-form, and the flow of visitors who come inside to talk livens the solo work of making my art.

Visitors to the Prow Artspace from

Saint John's University, NY and from

England, Scotland and California

Several artist friends have said they couldn't do this, they couldn't draw in public, couldn't commit to all these weeks. But it doesn't feel like a burden to me. The prow is quiet, the faces - especially those of the children - full of delight. What a privileged position to be in, to see how viewers react to our artwork!

And when January comes and I have to leave the Prow Studio? I am going to remember the lessons I have learned about pacing myself, about ring-fencing time for work, about being unplugged, about making art with others.

And my cutlery drawer is going to be very, very neat once again.

Cups at the Flatiron: 4 Weeks Down and 10 to Go

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:28:00 +0000

So what is the hardest thing about being in the window of the Flatiron drawing five days a week? That coffee cart right outside on 5th Avenue. It is just so dang hard to draw! I have now tackled it a half dozen times. Three of the resulting cups passed my keeper test and are hanging in the window. Have a hunt for them.

Cups of the Day #90 by Gwyneth Leech.

Recent cups in the Flatiron window.
India ink on upcycled white paper cups.

After that, it is the perspective of the buildings on all these converging and diverging streets. No, I don't have to tackle them, but it is an irresistible challenge. I peer up Broadway and 5th Avenue to the north and try to figure out that crazy skyline. Am I really seeing buildings as far away as 42nd Street? What a vista!

The view from the inside

the cup installation by Gwyneth Leech,

in the Sprint Prow Artspace, Flatiron Building,
where 5th Avenue and Broadway Meet.

Visitors outside the plate glass, and those who find their way in through the Sprint Store are always welcome, as long as they don't mind that I usually won't be looking them in the eye - I have to keep drawing, it is nothing personal. Lots of kids come in on Saturdays especially, and don't want to leave. Thanks to Faber Castell and my now enormous stash of empty take-out cups from all over the five boroughs, there is plenty for everyone who wants to try cup drawing.

The view from Broadway.

Everyone knows about cups!

Usually mom and dad are too shy to draw, and while little Johnny tries his hand on one, two, three cups they cruise the Sprint store checking out the latest merchandise (which is the new I-phone, by the way).

Impromptu drawing workshop inside the exhibit.

A steady flow of kids on a Saturday afternoon.

I am getting to know the rhythm of the Sprint store by now. I arrive each morning a few minutes before 11am with my takeout cup from one of a selection of nearby places (Eisenberg's, Deli Marché, Argo) and catch the eye of the manager(ess) on duty - Rob, Ashley, Precious, Yanelli, sometimes Matt. Then I go and sit in mental Zen space by the glass door leading to the Prow until the key is fetched from a secret location down a spiral staircase and deep in the bowels of the offices below street level. The key arrives, the manager(ess) unlocks with a smile, there is a whoosh of air as the door opens, I am invariably wished a good day, and finally, I have reached the inner sanctum.

The door is left ajar and will be locked again once I leave. I get myself situated: cell phone and camera out, coffee at hand, pull up the chair, take a seat and bam.... I am in the zone for the next three hours, drawing and looking and dreaming and seeming to float on the current of humanity outside the glass. The buzz and music from the Sprint store recede, people and traffic are a distant hum, there is the occasional low rumble of a passing subway train. None of it distracts me. I have to say, it really is a sweet spot for a studio, right in the heart of the city, and four weeks have flown by! I feel fortunate indeed to have another ten stretching leisurely before me.

The installation from the very point of the Prow.

The exhibit is changing and growing

as I add new cup drawings five days a week.

Coffee Cups and Supernovae: A Tribute to Saul Perlmutter, Nobel Laureate

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:37:00 +0000

I am sitting in the midst of my personal ever-expanding universe of cups and thinking about my high school friend, Saul Perlmutter, who just won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Yep, I am going to say it; I knew him when...

Cup of the Day #89

Cosmological Cup by Gwyneth Leech

Colored India Ink on upcycled white paper coffee cup

It was 11th grade physics at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia. I was terrified of word problems. Saul Perlmutter was a friendly kid in the class who happened to be super bright, generous and willing to help me. He had a way of explaining physics so that it all made perfect sense. I passed that class with flying colors and I owe it to him!

My favorite part of physics was undoubtedly all the space stuff - white dwarfs, red dwarfs, supernovae, black holes. Saul's too, I guess, since he went on to study astrophysics and become the supernova guy.

Hypergraphia cup galaxy by Gwyneth Leech

at the Flatiron Building, NYC

October 2011

Saul was (and still is) gregarious and funny. In our senior year we were a couple, which essentially involved going everywhere with a whole passel of his friends and mine - to the movies or piling into someone's living room to hang out and talk on a Saturday night. We went our separate ways in college - he to Harvard, then to Berkeley, I to the University of Pennsylvania, then on to Scotland to study art. But we kept in touch.

In 1988, with his freshly minted PhD in astrophysics and a job as a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, supernovae took his fancy. He wondered if he could devise a computer program to scan the heavens for this rare kind of astronomical event - a task hitherto done only by certain human sky watchers around the globe with extraordinary visual memory. There was great skepticism amongst the sky watchers and astronomers about a computer's ability to match their skill.

Saul Perlmutter,

Nobel Laureate in Physics 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/science/space/05nobel.html

The goal was to use the light of supernovae to measure the speed of the theoretical slowing down of the expansion of the Universe.

The computer program worked; automated searches began to find more supernovae than the human eye. But his team needed a lot of these events. In Saul's hallmark spirit of openness and collaboration, he made the supernova search software public on the premise that the more teams working on the project the better the results would be and the quicker they would get them. He then embarked on many years of traveling to telescopes in far flung parts of the globe and coordinating scientists.

More and more supernova data was gathered but it took ten years to get what they needed. Then it came time to plot the data and see if it confirmed Hubble's theory about the decelerating expansion of the universe. In what Saul calls "the long aha" - a realization made over months - they could only conclude that this classic theory was wrong:
The expansion of the universe is not slowing, but speeding up! And this is a discovery which turns on its head everything scientists thought they knew about the nature of the universe!!

Tycho's Supernova Remnant:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO,

Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical:

MPIA, Calar Alto, O.Krause et al.

His wasn't the only team to make the discovery. Several teams of astronomers, using his supernova software and doing the same research, had come to the same conclusion. But they had cast themselves as his rivals and the race was on to publication. In 1998 they all published their results within weeks of each other - one group the first to present the findings at a conference, the other the first into a peer-reviewed journal. Last week three teams were honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics. Saul got one half, the other two teams split the rest.

Over the last ten years Saul has been on an elusive quest to fund the construction and launch of a space telescope devoted to supernova research. In tough economic times the Government funding keeps getting deferred, the telescope gets shelved again and again.

We had the rarest of opportunities to sit down together for coffee this summer when Saul and his wife, Laura, a professor of anthropology, were on sabbatical leave in Princeton and came into the City to visit art galleries in Chelsea. We met at Buongiorno Espresso Bar on 9th Avenue. To be precise, Laura and I had the espressos; Saul had orange juice. Nary a caffeinated beverage has ever passed his lips. Hmm, if I give up caffeine would I have a hope of thinking more like a Nobel Prize winner?

Talking about the telescope, Saul said that technological advances had lowered the price tag considerably. No longer a billion or so, but mere millions.

"Heck," said a mutual friend later when I shared this, "we should just pass the hat and buy the guy his telescope!" I'm game. I am more than willing to do a cup-drawing fund-raiser if it will help.
Saul, just let me know.

Ready to draw at the Flatiron

Hypergraphia by Gwyneth Leech, October 201

And as for his ability to help ordinary mortals understand physics, he still has it as can be seen from this recent video interview where he explains the science which made him a Nobel Laureate. Moreover, it is apparent that his enthusiasm for science remains undimmed; That is worthy of a prize all by itself.

Saul Perlmutter, Press conference, October 2011

The cup installation at the Flatiron: the View from the Street

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:49:00 +0000

23rd Street, where 5th Avenue and Broadway meet. I knew it would be a high traffic location; indeed people visit the Flatiron Building in New York City 24 hours a day. But for some reason, I hadn't reckoned on the photography. From giant SLRs to I-phones to videos, the cameras click around the clock, and then the images flow out onto the web.

Hanging cups in the Flatiron Artspace

5PM on a rainy afternoon.

Photo by Bernard Klevickas

I am loving seeing the installation through everyone's eyes and enjoy daily e-mails and postings that bring new views taken at different times of the day. I mean, I just haven't made it down there at 6AM yet, but how gorgeous the photo is of the windows before dawn!

6 AM, photo by Richard Kranzler

Cup details. Photo by Rhoma Mostel

I did try my hand at a little night time photography. Oh dear! I got a few lucky shots, just enough to know that it is not as easy as it looks, even with a tripod. So here is a big shout-out to artists and photographers who have sent images my way. Thank you, and keep them coming!

Gwyneth drawing in the window
High noon. Photo by Julann Gebbie

Cups and street reflections.

Photo by Judy Sidonie Tillinger

2 PM, photo by Susan Baker

Passersby shooting at night with a cellphone.

Hanging cups at the Flatiron, 8PM.

Photo: Gwyneth Leech

A Week of Tea and Cup Art in the Prow

noreply@blogger.com (Gwyneth Leech) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:50:00 +0000

I embarked on Week One of Hypergraphia at the Flatiron on a sun-filled Tuesday morning. The weather is still hot and muggy for September. Coffee cups floated by outside the windows as the foot traffic eddied around the Prow, many people passing from Argo Café just next door.

Cups of the Day #88

Morning at the Flatiron

Wednesday and Thursday were filled with visitors. I was delighted when Scott Kahn, painter, and Dilys Winegrad, curator, both University of Pennsylvania connections, stopped in and lightened my drawing hours.

The street views in every direction intrigue me - up and down Fifth and Broadway, across into Madison Square Park, both ways on 23rd Street. I can see everywhere, the grid exploded in crazy cubist angles. What a vantage point!

I am getting the measure of the space as a studio, enjoying the light-filled circles of the display platform. I spread out my pens - a welcome donation from Faber-Castell. I discovered their Pitt brush pens with their saturated light-fast colored India Ink several years ago and have used them ever since. They give just the right balance of line and brush mark.

Thursday it poured cats and dogs and cups. Rain lashed the Prow and I felt indeed as if I were abroad ship, riding on waves of umbrellas.

Saturday the sun broke through in time for our reception in the Prow Art Space. I shared my art pens with visitors who tried their hand at upcycling their own coffee cups.

Heat built up inside, but we were kept afloat by a vat of iced Hibiscus tea with lemonade courtesy of Argo Tea. Argo Tea has certainly fueled all of Week One. I have thoroughly enjoyed each perfectly brewed cup - no tea bags there.

Week Two is upon me and I am heading out the door for another drawing session in the window studio. You will see me there Tuesdays - Saturdays 11 am - 2 pm, pen in one hand, cup in the other.