title: Matplotlib Gridspec "Cell" labels
body: <p>Using <a href="http://matplotlib.org/users/gridspec.html" rel="nofollow">GridSpec</a>, I have a regular lattice of plots.  Assume 3 x 3.  All plot axis are turned off as I am interested in the shape of the plot, not the individual axis values.</p>
  
  <p>What I would like to do, is label the x and y axis of the larger box.  For example, in the 3 x 3 case above, the x-axis could be ['A', 'B', 'C'] and the y-axis could be [1,2,3].  </p>
  
  <p>Is it possible to get this labeling?  How can I access the grid spec axis?</p>
  
  <p>Not much in the <a href="http://matplotlib.org/1.3.1/api/gridspec_api.html" rel="nofollow">GridSpec documentation</a> unless I am missing an obvious method name.</p>
  
  <p>Code example.  Data is in a pandas dataframe - ignore the brute force extraction with nested loops...</p>
  
  <pre><code>    fig = plt.figure(figsize=(12,12))
  
      gs = gridspec.GridSpec(40, 19, wspace=0.0, hspace=0.0)
  
      for j in nseasons:
          t = tt[j]
          nlats = t.columns.levels[0]
          for idx, k in enumerate(nlats):
              diurnal = t[k].iloc[0]
              ax = plt.subplot(gs[j, idx])
              ax.plot(y, diurnal.values, 'b-')
              ax.set_xticks([])
              ax.set_yticks([])
              fig.add_subplot(ax)
              sys.stdout.write("Processed plot {}/{}\r".format(cplots, nplots))
              sys.stdout.flush()
              cplots += 1
  
      #Here the figures axis labels need to be set.
  </code></pre>