Raining Coffee Cups: Time for a Refill

I gave a talk about my artwork over the weekend. After seeing a photograph of my drawings on cups, a man said to me, "Does this project have an environmental message? I hope not."
I was surprised, given that he is a science teacher.
"Only in the nicest possible way," I replied.

 Cup of the Day #78

Umbrella cup by Gwyneth Leech

India ink an Bic pen on upcyled paper coffee cup
Drawn in the window, March 21, 2011

Umbrella set by Gwyneth

India ink an Bic pen on upcyled paper coffee cups
Drawn in the window, March 21, 2011 

It is hard not to think about issues of over-consumption and consumer waste when surrounded by the results of my own small, daily act of buying hot drinks to go for over a year. Nearly 400 single use paper coffee cups is a lot to look at. I am now hyper-aware of the coffee cups I see everywhere in the city and know they aren't heading to recyling, but to landfills where they don't decompose because of their pesky polyethelene lining, the lining which allows them to hold hot drinks.

View from the Hypergraphia window

March 21, 2011

Yet I have grown fond of the sturdy paper cup. It has a history. Someone invented it in 1907, in my home state of Pennsylvania no less. And it even intersects with my family story, having first been used commercially on the Lackawanna and Western Railway. My great grandfather Alfred Fowler McCollum worked for Lackawanna at that very time, and since he was an inventor, I can imagine him being instrumental in the switch from communal water dippers to the newfangled but hygienic paper cup.

 View from the Hypergraphia window

March 21, 2011 

I decide that the least I can do is reuse some of my unadorned empties. One cup should last a few dozen times (not a patch on the travel mug which can be reused thousands of times, but I am not tempted to draw on those, yet). On the first attempt, at the deli, they take my proffered paper cup, throw it away and fill a new one. The second time, at Empire Coffee and Tea Company on 9th Avenue I specify reuse. They fill without comment, but give me a new plastic lid and coffee sleeve. All I need is another plastic lid! The third time I am at Guy and Gaillard on 38th. I ask for a cup of tea and hold out my empty paper cup. The man reaches under the counter and pulls out a new one.
"Please reuse my empty one," I say, still holding out my cup.
"Oh no," he says, "That's a cheap cup. No good. We have better cups, expensive - good plastic lining!"
He fills it and hands it over.
What can I do? I take yet another cup, pay and head out the door.

   View from the Hypergraphia window

March 19, 2011 

Build up your Tolerance for Solitude

In my last post I was ensconced on the couch at home, cup in hand, loathe to leave and start my creative work for the day. The longer I sat, the more comfortable and blank I felt.

Cup of the Day #34

Ebullient Cup #2 by Gwyneth Leech

White-out pen and colored ink on green cup, 2010

I finally got to my feet and out the door. As soon as I was walking the ideas and connections started to flow. Twyla Tharp (The Creative Habit, Simon and Schuster, 2003) is adamant that the root of the creative process is movement. Moving your body generates activity in the synapses of the brain, which I totally buy into. I keep thinking I should do that treadmill session at the gym first thing, or even an early morning dance class (last time at the ballet barre: 1974). Right now, a walk is all I can commit to.

I get my cuppa from Lenny's on 9th (I am in the mood for a dark blue cup) and make it to the studio with minimal distractions. Once inside the door I am filled with a blissful feeling. I am alone, and unplugged. No internet connection. Just the space, the art materials and the view out the window.

Twyla has interesting things to say about being alone. For some artists the fear of being by themselves is enough to keep them from going to the studio at all. When I was a university student studying academic subjects I felt that way. With paper and books in the library I was just plain lonely. As a younger artist I still experienced that loneliness intermittently. Now, with the escalating demands of children, ailing parents, neighbors, school committees, etc. being along is the best thing imaginable.

"Build up your Tolerance for Solitude" Twyla admonishes. For those afraid to be by themselves in the studio, Twyla suggest recalling things you do like to do on your own. It could be a soak in the tub, a hike in nature, or "the quiet moment of sinking into a chair with coffee when the kids have left for school" (p. 31). Yes, she did write this book just for me!

Anyway, here I am in the studio delighted to be alone, looking out the window and daydreaming. I take a swig of coffee. Now how am I going to actually get started?

 

In the 39th Street studio

Gwyneth Leech, 2009

the Art of Procrastnation: Caffeine on the Couch

The girls are finally back at school. The oldest took herself early by subway. When the door shut on my husband and younger daughter at 8AM, I grabbed my tea and sank down on the couch for the best hour of the day. Silence descends and I come to myself. First day of my Fall art making season!

Cup of the Day #33

Ebullient Cup by Gwyneth Leech, 2010

Colored ink and white-out pen on blue cup

For days, in free scraps of time, I have been cleaning out filing cabinet drawers, sorting through piles of papers and mail accumulated over the Spring and Summer, shredding, updating my e-mail address book, scrawling ideas and plans on the back of envelopes and looking longingly at my art materials and piles of blank cups. Now a whole day stretches in front of me. I am happy. I am excited.

Actually, I am terrified.

How will I get back in the groove? 

I start with a quick review of my current read: Twyla Tharp, the Creative Habit. (Simon and Schuster, 2003). I am only a few chapters in but this book speaks to me. I have read a lot of these sorts of books: the Artist's Way, Art and Fear, I Rather Be in the Studio. They all have something to offer the artist stumbling through a morass of life obligations that seem to keep us from our work. Why is it so hard to put art-making first?

Twyla is fierce and indomitable. I am absorbed in her first section on preparing to prepare, about the rites and rituals we put in place to get ourselves in front of our work habitually. She starts her days by working out from 6-8 AM. Her ritual is the getting into the cab to go to the gym. Too hard for me! I keep reading. Page 17, she describes a California author who can't write indoors, so his ritual is the carrying of a mug of coffee to an open porch where he works every day. I am so on board with that one! Once I am down the street and buying that cup of coffee in a paper cup, I know my feet will take me straight to the studio and the rest will happen.

Now all I have to do is get off this couch...

An Irish Brew

 

 Cup of the Day #7

Filigree Cup by Gwyneth Leech

White-out pen on green cardboard cup, 2009

My painting studio is on 39th Street, eight blocks down 9th Avenue from my apartment and a walk to work invariably full of incident. This morning, getting underway rather late, I am surprised by the volume of foot traffic until at Amy's Bread, the soda bread and paper shamrocks in the window plus the line out the door of people in green remind me that it is Saint Patrick's day.

I wait my turn in the amiable crush and order a scone and coffee to go. They serve excellent Illy espresso at Amy's and one of favorite breakfasts in Manhattan is to sit in here for a large bowl of Cafe au lait with french bread and butter, but I don't have time today. I get the Oran's decaf coffee on tap and am then am disappointed to find it extremely bitter when I taste it on my way down the street.

The Saint Patrick's Day Parade is already underway several blocks East and green-clad bar-flies are smoking their breakfasts outside the bars all the way down to 42nd Street. I dump my decaf in a trash can and go into Empire Tea and Coffee at 41st and 9th. This no-frills shop carries a great range of whole beans which the owner has roasted upstate. Their tea selection is also excellent - boxes at the front, loose leaf in glass jars at the back. And they sell a full menu of hot drinks to go, including outstanding espresso drinks at great prices.

I have been coming to Empire for years and always enjoy the personable baristas who seem to be drawn from a never-ending pool of aspiring jazz and pop musicians. The clientele includes artists, people heading to offices, construction workers from the burgeoning high rises in the neighborhood and postal employees from the depot on 42nd Street. There used to be a steady stream of musicians carrying instruments and headed for rehearsal studios on 41st, but that building was torn down to make way for a skyscraper a few years ago.

I order a Barry's Irish tea to mark the day. Barry's is Empire's house tea and it is a vigorous black brew which I drink strong with milk, no sugar. I like it almost as much as Brooke Bond's Scottish Blend. I lived in Scotland for 15 years and we swore by Scottish Blend, an unpretentious, full-bodied black tea sold in super markets at a modest price. When I moved to New York 10 years ago I persuaded Empire to order it for me and it is always stocked, and quite popular - despite the New York price tag.

By 4 PM I am heading back up 9th Avenue after a productive day painting. I didn't go to the parade. My ancestors are Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh in pretty equal parts so I choose not to celebrate any of the historically warring factions. The green revelers are more numerous now, and some are staggering. Here are some green wigs, there a green torso, lots of green trinkets. Outside Rudy's Bar and Grill at 44th Street I pause to admire the Swine on Nine. Today he is wearing a kilt!

 A reveler celebrating with the Swine on Nine

Saint Patrick's Day, NYC, 2010