Echo Park’s French restaurant, Taix (pronounced, “tex” like Texas…I promise), has stood the test of time. It’s a bazaar restaurant for many enjoyable reasons: while it hosts both underground concerts and large music festivals that attract the hip, young(ish) LA crowd, it also has some devoted, elderly customers who flood the valet parking and have been ordering the same dinner special for 50 years. I love this.
It took me a year of living in the area to actually go inside the restaurant. I thought it was a hotel. I event thought this during my first visit there. The bar area was like a hotel lobby. There were just a few people lounging. Someone was reading the paper. Sports on TV. Dark, patterned carpets leading down long hallways in many directions. Photos of old white men next to framed newspaper clippings, its eerie history.
Since then, I’ve seen the many colors of Taix, from punk bands with pantyhose on their heads, on tour, rocking out to their latest album to silver haired, local musicians with bandanas on their ankles, playing songs they’ve sang for 20 years.
They make the best gin martini I’ve had (besides my dad’s).
When I go back to LA, I go there to draw.
Here’s my 8″x8″
The arched alcoves lent themselves to an experiment in symmetry.
I cut out the oil paintings of landscapes and put in a few variations of the same Seal Beach sky.
Here’s some of the process:
I’m still working on making subtle art gifs, so I wanted to add a little movement to this. I pushed the clouds around in the background. Check it out:
Lorna Phone 
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