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Chef Tara Thomas, Long Time Arts Advocate, Closes Artist Hot Spot Traxx RestaurantMay 2019 Dear Art Lovers, It is with great glee that I have a hot art news scoop for Art Report Today. The scoop is unfortunately a very sad one, hence my mixed emotions. Traxx Restaurant in Union Station has closed, after 22 years. Chef Tara Thomas is the daughter of public arts pioneer and art advisor Tamara Thomas. In her long career as a Los Angeles chef, she has been a collector and devoted advocate for the arts. Traxx has closed for business purposes and an ever-changing downtown dynamic. Following is an essay I wrote for the 20th Anniversary of Traxx. Gordy Grundy
No Further West Time flies when you’re having fun. I remember the night twenty years ago when Traxx Restaurant opened in historic Union Station. The party had started, guests were arriving, and it was too early to howl at the moon. Tara found me. I took her arm and we strolled down the grand, grand concourse, through the brass doors and across the iconic entrance of tile and terrazzo. We both had much to celebrate. Los Angeles, the golden city by the sea, has been of great significance in my life. I know the city and her history well and I love her with all of my heart and soul. Union Station is very much a part of that fascination. Standing under the iconic porte-cochère, we stopped and looked up. The low sky was still blue and a few stars fought for attention. The night was clear and sharp. The lights on top of City Hall were bright. We had a reason to celebrate. Tonight, Chef Tara Thomas was debuting her new restaurant. The doors were opened for the very first time. Inside, the design was minimalist and streamlined. Subtle arches divided an open space of warm color and comfort. Traxx featured only one piece of art in the venue. And it was mine. As an artist, such a distinction is hoped for but rarely allowed. Add Union Station, a location as revered in my SoCal mind as Heaven, Hawaii, Valhalla and Disneyland. That night, I was the luckiest guy in Los Angeles. The Minimalist painting is long at 72 inches wide and high at 15. The Luan wood, vinyl, lacquer and gold leaf artwork rides 3 inches off the wall. The short grain of Luan, in gold leaf, makes a quietly busy surface. The words No Further West are slightly raised and hidden in the center. The title is literal and with humor. The train tracks stop here; Traxx is the end of the line. There is no further west. But the concept meant much more to me. The subtitle to No Further West lays it out like a Hollywood screen prologue.
We have reached the end of American expansion. There are no new territories left to discover. There is no further West. Now, we Americans must face our greatest challenge, for the new frontier lies within.
Los Angeles has always been a glowing, golden mystery to me. As a kid, I grew up in a beach town, forty-six miles south. The Big City lay north. Every morning my dad and I read the comics in the Los Angeles Times. Hollywood was in Los Angeles. USC and football games were in Los Angeles. Raymond Chandler, John Fante, James Cain and Nathaniel West wrote about Los Angeles. The golden sunset in my mind became gritty and luxurious and erotic. My fascination with Union Station started with Hollywood. As a kid, TV offered my first brush with the vibrant location. Old black and white movies, Dragnet reruns and full color Adam-12 set pieces. In Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, Union Station is just eight blocks south of 1712 Alameda, scene of the film’s final tragedy. Blade Runner. First and foremost, the architecture of the formidable station is staggeringly beautiful. The acclaim is universal. In 2014, the Getty curated an exhibition No Further West at the Central Library. The seminal show celebrated the station’s architectural significance. Their book, edited by Marlyn Musicant, is a keepsake. A stroll of the station grounds offers great entertainment and much to discover; Union Station is all about the details. No one can look into the empty Fred Harvey space without seeing a ghost. When Tara Thomas suggested an artwork for her new endeavor, the concept was instantly born in a lucky flash of misfiring synapses. Here was a chance to be a physical part of this formidable temple. I had never received a greater commission. Nor could I have picked a more meaningful one. This commission was a gift. An artist rarely visits such lofty realms; I was and remain humbly grateful.
Design specs. Meetings. Planning. Production. Deadlines. Transportation. The long and delicate artwork was carefully secured to the back of my truck. I took the 101 aiming for Union Station from my Angelino Heights studio in Echo Park. On the Hollywood Freeway, an error in physics made the sound of a dull explosion as ropes broke and the gold leaf artwork burst high into the sky. Sunlight flashed across the shiny gold leaf as it twirled aloft and then hammered into the concrete highway. In the rear view mirror at forty-eight miles an hour, I saw the soft wood and fragile gold leaf splinter into a million sparkling shards. There was no point in even pulling over to the side of the road. The artwork for Traxx was spectacularly obliterated. My team was crack. Those outside bit their nails and fretted. A new artwork was produced from scratch, not without drama. We installed the new and second piece late at night. It was hard to hang on that angled wall. Traxx opened on time.
No Further West represents a body of work that consumed several years and gave me great pleasure. The works were beautiful to make and the text often had a sense of humor. (I really like to laugh.) Oddly, I never exhibited the whole body of work; just a couple of pieces in a few group shows. The work was perfect for me and yet I was afraid it would become a signature. I don’t like to be fenced in; I know artists who get trapped by style. Approximately fifty to sixty works were created and sold. Once its journey had ended, I moved beyond the body of gold leaf and text work for new horizons. As an artist, I am happiest when I am lost in the discovery and engineering of a piece. Who knows? Someday I may return to the gold leaf, text and wood works. I like its subtlety, humor and surprise.
The great wide far true West is very much at the heart of the Traxx work. All that is good and great about this country has been distilled into this romantic ideal. What does it mean? It is the end of our long and hard journey. We have reached the promised land of clear waters and abundant fields. Beauties all around. Now, we can rest. We can live free, without fear or worry. We are home. No Further West is not naive. There never is an end. We keep looking beyond, because that is our human nature. We can’t help it. Once the horses have been watered and rested, we will keep looking, restlessly, to a new horizon.
CHEF TARA THOMAS
I tend to be an existentialist. I can’t tell you what I had for lunch yesterday nor can I say when I first met Tara Thomas. I do remember where and what. There was a meeting on the Westside at the home of a wealthy civic-minded patron, intending to join all of the various and disparate factions that supported the Barnsdall Art Park in Los Feliz. Tara was involved with the museum or the Hollyhock House. For most of a decade, I was very active with the Barnsdall Art Center. In contrast to the commercial contemporary art world, Barnsdall was populated by people who genuinely loved to make art with the purest of intentions and the highest values. At the casual party-like meeting, I could not help but notice the Hitchcock blonde who stood out across the room. She was elegantly dressed, had a drink her hand and had the command of an audience. I singled her out and we quickly became fast friends. Tara and I have shared histories, fascinations and colleagues. Los Angeles. The Golden State. Musso and Franks. Snow, sand and sea. Her grandmother taught at my high school in the Fifties; this mattered much to me. These kindred mutualities became the foundation upon which we built an extremely daring and architecturally distinctive friendship. Tara and I were as streamlined as the California Zephyr and as Old School as a Red Car. When we first met, Tara was operating her first restaurant 410 Boyd. It was downtown, in the industrial Toy District off San Pedro, south of Little Tokyo. 410 was a popular artist spot, an easy ride for the local art colonist. It had an atmosphere of youthful abandon; the playground was wild.
The intention of this essay was to share a few of my adventures with Tara. I was thinking of a rolling, rollicking epic of audacity, daring-do and bad behavior. It quickly became apparent that I could and should not put that poison pen to paper. I’m afraid we’d be chased out of town, torches burning and voices shouting. There’s the morning that Tara brought me an extremely Irish cup of coffee and that’s all I can say. Or the dazzling night, we stood on a downtown rooftop, each of us in elegant formal wear, and that story stops here. Of course, our annual Christmas holiday lunch was special for reasons that I cannot tell you. Together, we have endured divorces, marriages, dogs, scandals, shenanigans, lovers, celebrities, sickness, health, Tuscany, death, societies both high and low, and all of the joys and miseries that life and humanity can slap in one’s face. It has been slapstick and gruesome, just like Life, bitter and, oh, so sweet. At least we’re havin’ fun. Recently I read her the list of tales that I cannot share with you and we were howling, laughing our asses off. Maybe I should publish it posthumously. That’s the best way to walk out of a room; toss a grenade. An extraordinary cast of characters has propelled the dynamic of Tara’s many subplots. Mutually, we know and have known the most amazing people of great talent and fascinating distinctions. All the rogues in this gallery are bright stars. If I were to mention just one, I would be compelled to commit to an epic novel. I could tell you that Ms. Thomas is an amazing and innovative chef, but the respected critics and food writers of Gourmet Magazine, Bon Appétit and the Wall Street Journal have done a better job. Her press can fill several scrapbooks. My esteem for her courage and entrepreneurship is absolute. Her friends in business, industry and government are evidence, a testament to those values. Our commitment to each other has persevered through many challenges to its sanctity; our devotion and loyalty are tested and true. I will always provide her with an airtight alibi. I will always destroy any unfortunate evidence. She is the fugitive I’d most like to harbor. I may know where the scandals are buried, but I’ll never tell. It’s really been a helluva madcap adventure.
Twenty strong years in the risky restaurant business is a hard-earned success and an amazing achievement. Beyond the great food, Traxx has also become a landmark, a place of respite, a beacon of comfort and a place in Los Angeles history. Much has happened in these twenty years. Viva Traxx! Viva Los Angeles! I’m the luckiest art maker in the Pacific. The work No Further West has stood the test of time, over a fifth of a century. It is now more relevant than ever. Having some significance is an unstated dream for most artists. Union Station epitomizes California grandeur; the location and exhibition of No Further West are sublime. How lucky can an artist get?
PRIVACY POLICY
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