Do or Die Painting: Summer In New York City

 Cups of the Day #123, by Gwyneth Leech

Ink and White-out on Colored Cups

I have been sweltering in the studio for the past few weeks, reconnecting with a series of oil paintings about tidal marshes begun in 2009/2010, all of them unfinished. Why did I leave off when each one was only an unresolved passage or two from completion?

Sometimes it can take years to see what is needed to finish a composition. In one case, the painting called for a major reanimation and I had a glorious time reworking it, so much so that I couldn't sleep that night for the skeins of bright colors undulating in my head. As is often the case, the results were suspect the next day, but pointed to a whole new possible series of paintings. Would that I had stacks and stacks of blank canvases and no concerns about where to store them all! Then I would make my marks and let them lie.

Gwyneth Leech, Blue Green Tidal Marsh Pools

30" x 30", Oil on Canvas

Interestingly, five artists currently in a show called "Dying On Stage: New Painting in New York" at Garis and Hahn Gallery do precisely that on large expanses of canvas: make the mark once and commit to it, succeed or fail. No corrections, no revisions. Do it and move on. The results are fresh and breezy abstractions, full of the heat of summer sun and the cool of deep arboreal shadow. A sizable group gathered last night to hear the artists talk about their work and then take part in a group discussion led by the curator, Kyle Chayka, and  artist/blogger, Sharon Butler. Sharon's 2011 article for the Brooklyn Rail naming this tendency in New York painting as Casualism, was a lynchpin of the conversation.

Tatiana Berg, Wide Sargasso Tent, 2013
Acrylic on Canvas, 59 x 59 x 15 inches 

Photo: Garis & Hahn  

Some of the artists seemed uncomfortable with the term Casualism, since the risk inherent in their process is the opposite of casual. The do or die of an uncorrected mark is not an easy thing. As Sharon Butler said, it is very, very hard to stop painting. Yes, indeed! Once begun, who wants to let go? The terror of the blank canvas is the hardest moment of any painting session for me. I will do much to avoid it.

 Ariel Dill, Glyph, 2013
Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
Courtesy of Southfirst Gallery

And that reminded me why most of my large oil paintings have been unfinished for so long. My generative impulse is truly hampered by the expense of the canvas support, the time it takes to make the painting, the space needed to store it. A number of years ago I realized this was holding me back. I needed a different kind of surface, readily available, one that could be a fail and not matter, one where I could  keep the focus on generating visual ideas. The solution was the paper coffee cup, as I discovered back in 2009 and which rapidly became my perfect vessel, literally and figuratively, for an explosion of imagery and a multiplicity of new directions.

 

Kristina Lee, Double Trouble, 2013
Oil on Canvas, 48 x 50 inches

Photo: Garis & Hahn

So I admired the bravura of the painters in "Dying on Stage: New Painting in New York" and I hope to keep that freshness going in my own studio as I continue to grapple with my dormant canvases. As for my paper coffee cups - it's almost all iced coffee in plastic cups right now, and I have yet to figure out what to do with those!

Clare Grill, Game, 2012
Oil on Linen, 16 x 15 inches

Photo: Garis & Hahn 

Garis and Hahn opened just as few months ago at 263 Bowery and "Dying on Stage: New Painting in New York" is project #007. The exhibition closes Saturday July 20th so don't delay! If you miss it, there is a handsome catalogue with introductory essays by the curator, Kyle Chayka and by Sharon Butler. The artists are: Ariel Dill, Clare Grill, Kristina Lee, Sarah Faux, Tatiana Berg.
For more information click here.

 

Sarah Faux, Tangle, 2013
Oil, Dye and Bleach on Canvas
52 x 36 inches

Photo: Garis & Hahn  

The next outing for my cup artworks will be an installation called "365: A Year in Cups" in the window of Anthropologie's store in Regent Street during the London Design Festival in September. More details about my collaboration with Anthropologie to come, but in the meantime click here for information about the London exhibition. And I am looking forward to cooler weather on the other side of the pond!
 

Gwyneth Leech, 365: A Year in Cups

will be at the 2013 London Design Festival  in September

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Last Chance to See Families/Cities SHIFT at Susan Teller Gallery

Cups of the Day #122

Mixed Media on upcycled paper coffee cups

Individual cups from "An Immigrants Dream of Home"

at Susan Teller Gallery, For Ideas City Festival 2013

It was an exciting week in New York City. The New Museum's Ideas City festival took over Lower Manhattan and the Lower East Side from May 1st - 4th with an extensive program of events, including a conference, workshops, art exhibitions, special projects, public art installations and a large, offbeat StreetFest on the Bowery on Saturday.


My particular contribution to the festival was at Susan Teller Gallery, 568 Broadway, #502, as part of her current exhibition Families/Cities SHIFT, which includes artwork by five members of the Leech/Gallagher family and four members of the Pinto family. My sister, Kitty Leech and I were on hand from 1-5 PM for informal discussion of life in a multi-generational art family. There are lots of stories to share! Anna Pinto, calligrapher was also there for part of the afternoon.


But if you missed it on that day, not to worry. The exhibition is still open Tuesday - Saturday by appointment through the end of May. Call the gallery at  212 941 7335 for more information.

Gwyneth Leech, Ecuador/New York, A Dream of Home, 2010-12
mixed media with 55 used paper coffee cups, 120 x 24 x 30 inches

An installation for Families/Cities SHIFT at Susan Teller Gallery, NYC

   
 

Jody Pinto, Fingerspan Bridge. Preparatory to the installation of the 

nine-ton bridge of Wissahickon Creek in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia., 1987
mixed media, 60 x 72 inches, Image: Susan Teller Gallery

Families/Cities Shift

The Gallagher-Leech & Pinto Families,
Philadelphia and New York
In conjunction with the Ideas City Festival,
sponsored by the New Museum
www.ideas-city.org/view/family-city-shift

On view: April 5 - May 11, 2013
Open: Tuesdays - Saturdays, 11-6

SUSAN TELLER GALLERY
568 Broadway (Room 502)
New York, NY 10012
212-941-7335
info@susantellergallery.com
www.susantellergallery.com

"This is a show about two families making significant contributions to Philadelphia and New York, the cities in which they live, including and beyond the form of individual works of art.

In the 1930s, Michael Gallagher, an administrator on the WPA, recruited impoverished artists including previously ignored African-Americans. (There, Dox Thrash helped invent carborundum printmaking, a technique that at once repurposed the material while compensating for meager supplies). Angelo Pinto taught at the Barnes Foundation for decades and in the late ’30s developed location photography techniques that freed the process from the studio.

The current generation inherited a Depression-Era ability to make do, reinvent, and inspire, especially regarding venues, resources, and people. They respond to urban conditions and they work collaboratively.

Jody Pinto, environmental artist, Anna Pinto, calligrapher, and Kitty Leech, costume designer, are teachers; Jody and Gwyneth Leech are community activists."

Anna Pinto, Solitude, with poem by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1998

mixed media, 7 x 20 inches, Image: Susan Teller Gallery 

 

 Kitty Leech, Three Men From Waiting Imprints on a Landscape, The Mining Project, 2008
hand-colored photostats, 11 x 8 inches.  The dancers are three WPA printmakers, 

left to right, Hugh Mesibov, Michael J. Gallagher, and Dox Thrash.

Image: Susan Teller Gallery

Michael J. Gallagher, Anthracite, 1939-40
carborundum print, 8 x 10 inches
Image: Susan Teller Gallery 

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Bathed in Gold: Madison Square Park Goes Autumnal

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

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

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.