This exhibition celebrates simplicity in design.Whether planning a piece of furniture, an article of clothing, or a basic utensil, many designers embrace minimalism as a way to achieve rational functionality and elegant aesthetics. The Essence of Things brings together approximately 180 objects, ranging from humble everyday items like flip-flops and lip balm to more substantial chairs and lamps. In addition to these objects, photographs and video will round out the offerings of architecture, fashion, and art.Among the many designers represented are such iconic names as Gerrit Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, and Shigeru Ban.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s CINDERELLA is the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical from the creators of The Sound of Music, South Pacific that’s delighting audiences with its contemporary take on the classic tale. This lush production features an incredible orchestra, jaw-dropping transformations and all the moments you love – the pumpkin, the glass slipper, the masked ball and more – plus some surprising new twists! Be transported back to your childhood as you rediscover some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most beloved songs, including “In My Own Little Corner,” “Impossible/Possible” and “Ten Minutes Ago,” in this hilarious and romantic Broadway experience for anyone who’s ever had a wish, a dream… or a really great pair of shoes.
[dropcap]Tulsa[/dropcap] native Josh Fadem has stayed busy in Los Angeles doing a variety of stand up, sketch comedy, video shorts and movies. He has been a regular performer with the Upright Citizens Brigade since the Los Angeles theater opened in 2005 and has appeared at the Blue Whale Comedy Festival in Tulsa for the past two years. He has also written for Adult Swim, is a regular contributor to Funny or Die and has appeared in television shows including 30 Rock, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Better Call Saul. He was recently in Tulsa for a showing of his movie Freaks of Nature at Circle Cinema, and Oklahoma Magazine sat down with him at Chimera Café in downtown Tulsa to get his thoughts on…
…moving to Los Angeles.
I moved away from here in 2000, and I was 20. The only thing I was doing around then was hanging at the Central Library and renting videos from a fellow named David Nofire, who programs the midnight movies at the Circle Cinema. So I spent a lot of time walking around the Central Library and checking out video selections. I had a friend or two in Los Angeles, and I had a large interest in movies and maybe wasn’t ready to admit I had a large interest in comedy. Because, you know, when you’re 20 also you’re like, “I don’t want anyone to know what I really want to do.”
…getting into entertainment.
I started doing a lot of comedy theater, improv and stuff, then I eventually found my way into stand up, and then I found my way into more acting. And then the business kept moving along, and there were different comedy booms, and Upright Citizens Brigade came into town and I found myself there on day one and part of a scene.
…his preference toward different types of comedy.
I like acting, but I also like doing my own stuff. I like sketch comedy a lot and stand up a lot. I don’t know, it’s all kind of the same thing. It’s using different muscles but working toward the same goal.
…staying creative.
You got to look at it like it’s a workout. I think, other people might have a different answer, in order to maintain your sanity, you have to find a way to do it even when someone’s not asking you to do it. If you are an actor, and you’re like, “No one wants me to act,” you got to find a thing to act in, whether that’s writing your own thing to act in or coming up with a character to act or bugging people, saying, “I’d love to be in your thing, I’d love to work with you, I love what you make.” Some days you don’t have as much motivation, and then the next day you get it back. You have to really want to do it. I got all these little mantras that say, “Keep going, keep going, don’t stop, keep making the stuff.”
…social media.
I’m trying to get off Facebook. I hate that place. I hate the stuff on my feed, everyone fighting about politics. I don’t want to hear about that. Everyone posting about their dead relative or animal. It’s sad. It’s a bummer. And you get hooked on it. You say, “There’s got to be something else underneath here.” Isn’t it awful? Get me off of there. I got to get out of there, but I’m stuck.
[dropcap]Each[/dropcap] month Oklahoma Magazine highlights exciting Oklahoma film events and gives some guidance on films coming out on home video and those currently playing in theaters. April looks to be a good one for Oklahoma cinephiles, especially if you know where to look.
About Town
This month marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and several Oklahoma film venues are commemorating his passing by featuring special screenings of Shakespeare-related films. If you live in the Tulsa area, be sure to check out Circle Cinema’s series of filmed stage adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. All these films come courtesy of the BBC, so the craftsmanship and acting are top notch. Every Wednesday in April (and also April 25, a Monday) Circle Cinema will show a different play – of special note are As You Like It with Vanessa Redgrave and King Lear with Ian Holm as the doomed monarch.
Oklahoma City film lovers have the chance to catch one of the most bizarre, electrifying Shakespeare adaptations ever put on film, Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight, playing April 15-17 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Shakespeare finds his match in Welles’ crammed adaptation of the plays with Falstaff’s character, as Shakespeare’s classic rogue gets brought to life by Welles’ virtuoso performance.
At Home
The biggest DVD/BluRay release of the month is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Presumably, though, you have already seen it in theaters, where it’s best experienced, so allow us to recommend two smaller films that came out on home video in mid-March. Brooklyn and Carol offer differing, though complementary, visions of New York City in the 1950s. Though Brooklyn presents a more positive spin on the girl-coming-of-age story than does Carol, both offer tender, generous assessments of finding oneself in the midst of an isolating location. It helps that both achieve a simple grandeur through precise camerawork and set design.
In Theaters
Although Pixar has helped raise the quality of children’s movies, it’s still rare to see one as earnest and sincerely optimistic as Disney’s new animated film Zootopia. An extended exploration of racial prejudice and its effects on social harmony, the film takes place in a future where all animals, predator and prey alike, live in peace in the metropolis of Zootopia. When predators begin to lose control and turn savage, it’s up to a rookie rabbit cop and a con man fox to crack the mystery of what threatens Zootopia’s harmony.
The film has a few really great gags in it, but goes light on jokes in favor of its social message. Putting it that way makes it sound like a bit of a chore, but it absolutely is not, both because it delivers that message with subtlety and hope and because the world it builds bristles with energy. It’s a great bet for children and adults alike.
Don Eddy (American, b. 1944). Private Parking V, 1971.
Robert Henri (American 1865-1929). Tesuque Buck, CA. 1916
“Our City, Our Collection: Building the Museum’s Lasting Collection” is more than a chance to see the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s most famous exhibits. The exhibit, which tells the story of the museum’s history as a series of gifts, bequests and acquisitions, also gives visitors a chance to see pieces that aren’t displayed as often.
“When I was first conceptualizing the exhibition, part of what I had in mind was getting out works of art that are important in our collection we don’t normally get out,” says Michael Anderson, curator for the exhibition.
Those pieces range from a portfolio of pop artists Anderson says is difficult to display because of how the museum’s collection is laid out to a small collection of Native American art, including work by Acee Blue Eagle. Anderson says the museum does not collect Native American art because the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is also in Oklahoma City, but the OKCMOA has acquired some pieces over time.
Chales Wilson Peale (American, 1741-1827) George Washington, after 1779.Acee Blue Eagle (American, 1907-1959) Buffalo Medicine Man, 1939
One of the pieces, a sculpture by Philip Pavia, has never been displayed in the museum before, and Anderson says even he was surprised at the presence the piece has in the museum.
“Seeing it in person, it’s a really striking piece,” he says. “It’s a modernist sculpture, and it’s something I didn’t even really know we had, let alone that it would be as striking in the exhibition as it is.”
Anderson says 90 pieces in the exhibition also includes the OKCMOA’s most popular works of art people normally associate with the museum, including a portrait of George Washington by Charles Wilson Peale.
The combination of the well-known art with the less-exhibited pieces, along with the theme of the exhibition, helps visitors see the art in a new light, Anderson says.
“The exhibition reveals the personalities of the collectors and the aesthetics of the people who are in the collection,” he says. “It really puts them in a different context, and I think that’s one of the exciting things about the collection.”
Although the exhibition features a fair number of pieces of art for the size of the space, the open-floor plan allows for people to see contrasts between the different art styles being collected at the same time. Anderson says that allows visitors to get a perspective on “different attitudes toward art – what art was, what art could be” at the time the collections were acquired.
Fritz Scholder (American, 1937-2005) Laughing Indian, CA. 1976.Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877) Gorge In A Forest (The Black Well), CA. 1865.
“Really, this is telling the history of our museum through the major gifts and big collectors that helped build it,” Anderson says.
The exhibition starts with the Works Projects Administration’s donation of 28 works of art to Oklahoma City in 1942, three years before the museum transitioned from a federally-funded gallery to a private institution in 1945. Since then, other notable acquisitions have included the purchase of 158 works of art when the Washington Gallery of Modern art in Washington, D.C. closed in 1968 and the purchase of “Chihuly: An Inaugural exhibition,” a collection of Chihuly glass that was first presented as a temporary exhibit when the museum opened its new building in downtown Oklahoma City in 2002.
The exhibition runs through Aug. 28.
What
“Our City, Our Collection” at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Where
415 Couch Drive, Oklahoma City
When
10 a.m. to 5 p.m, Tuesday-Saturday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday; through Aug. 28
[dropcap]More[/dropcap] than 50 years after Bob Dylan moved to New York in hopes of meeting and learning from Oklahoma native Woody Guthrie, a new connection is being formed between two historic musicians.
The George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa have acquired The Bob Dylan Archive, which will be permanently housed in Tulsa and cared for by TU’s Helmerich Center for American Research, which also houses the Gilcrease Library and Archive. The announcement was made last month by George Kaiser Family Foundation Executive Director Ken Levit and TU President Steadman Upham.
“I think it’s a really exciting opportunity for Tulsa,” Levit says. “I think Tulsa has a great music history and a great current music scene.”
The George Kaiser Family Foundation previously purchased the Woody Guthrie Collection in 2011 and established the Woody Guthrie Center to display the collection in 2013. Levit says Dylan’s representatives were familiar with what the foundation had done with the Woody Guthrie Collection.
Conversations about The Bob Dylan Archive had been ongoing for about a year before it was acquired.
“We just got to know each other over the course of the year,” he says. “They spent some time in Tulsa and liked the community. I think they were very impressed by our partners, by the University of Tulsa and by the Gilcrease connection.”
The collection is made of more than 6,000 items from the entirety of Dylan’s career. It includes items such as notebooks containing handwritten lyrics, master tapes of Dylan’s entire music catalog, hundreds of hours of film and video materials and the leather jacket he wore onstage at his historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance when he played with a band and electric instruments.
Photos courtesy of the Bob Dylan Archive.
Although some items from the collection have already been moved to Tulsa, where they are being digitized and preserved by a digital curation team, physically acquiring the complete archive is expected to take around two years. Levit says the foundation hopes to open parts of the archive to scholars in 2016 and create a public exhibit within 18 months.
While the collection will be important for Dylan scholars and researchers, the collection should also attract the attention of tourists who are Dylan fans, Levit says. The city already receives visitors for the Woody Guthrie Collection, and he considers that to be “the tip of the iceberg” for future visitors.
“There’s going to be a real treasure trove for scholars, but also for music fans who will come in from all over,” he says.
The foundation is continuing to search for archive materials for other musicians, he adds. The Woody Guthrie Center is also home to the personal documents of Phil Ochs, a topical songwriter who was part of the 1960s U.S. folk music scene.
“We’re looking at collecting writers who are important in American culture, have an interest in social change and have made an impact on American society,” Levit says. “There’s an ongoing interest from our foundation to continue to bring that to Tulsa.”
[dropcap]Holding[/dropcap] two art shows at the same time might seem redundant, but for painter P.S. Gordon it was a necessity. While the two shows, which open April 1, both showcase Gordon’s familiar style, they feature very different subjects.
Mrs. Lennox and the Gift of Falling Snow, held at Living Arts in Tulsa, features portraits of male performance artists dressed in women’s clothing and a series of paintings Gordon painted shortly after being diagnosed as HIV positive. Recent Works, at the Hardesty Arts Center in Tulsa, will showcase paintings with Gordon’s more traditional subjects.
Mrs. Lennox and the Falling Snow would not have been possible without Gordon’s recent public disclosure of being HIV positive because of how closely the subjects are linked to his experience with the disease, he says. Gordon painted the first Mrs. Lennox painting 20 years ago, though some of the paintings are more recent..
“When I met Mrs. Lennox, we were at a fundraiser [for people with AIDS],” he says. We had friends who were dying. Bankers and realtors and artists, musicians … they were all dying. So we were doing all we could as a group to try to make as much money as we could for those who didn’t have anything. We didn’t know what was going on. We just had no idea, except that part of our friends were dying, and they were young.”
The Gift of Falling Snow series was painted after he was diagnosed as HIV positive.
“I couldn’t talk about these paintings without disclosing,” he says. “I don’t know how to talk about them without being able to discuss the force behind them, and that was a really strong, powerful voice in my head that kept screaming at me: ‘You’re going to die. How are you going to deal with this?’”
He ended up relating his diagnosis to the idea of falling snow, saying he knew the snow was coming, but not when it was coming, how bad it was going to be or what effect it would have on him.
Photos courtesy of P.S. Gordon.
The idea of the snow being a gift is related to the clarity that can come with being diagnosed as HIV positive, he says.
“Never did anything in my life confuse me as greatly as did this and in the same time clarified that which was important,” he says. “In the HIV community, it’s often referred to as the gift, because all of us who have it are aware of the potential of good and bad. It has taught me to really be appreciative of what this very moment is bringing.”
The show is an opportunity for Gordon to see not only some friends – three of the performance artists who served as models will be attending opening night – but also some of the paintings themselves.
The Gift of Falling Snow paintings have never been publicly displayed, and, except for one that he gave to a close friend, have been wrapped in plastic in Gordon’s basement. The Mrs. Lennox paintings are owned by various people, although Gordon does still have a few of them.
“It doesn’t happen very often,” he says. “I make a painting, and it leaves, and I sometimes see them and oftentimes never see them again, never know where they are, where they hang – let alone bring them back together. It’s almost like I’ve never seen them, other than the ones I personally own.”
With the display of Mrs. Lennox and the Gift of Falling Snow, though, Gordon thought it was important to hold a second show. While Recent Works only features paintings created in the past few years, Gordon, who paints 12 to 14 hours each day, will have 10 different works in the exhibit.
The paintings are more traditional subjects for people familiar with Gordon’s art.
“I didn’t want everybody to think I’d given up my love of painting flowers and still lives and interiors,” he says.
The two shows also mark the 50th anniversary of Gordon’s first art show, held in a 900-square-feet office building in Claremore when he was 12 years old.
“50 years ago, I sold my first painting,” he says. “And from that point on, I knew exactly what I was supposed to do.”
Urban is chic. It’s the buzzword of city planning committees across the state. It wasn’t that long ago that Oklahomans were accustomed to following “urban” with “decay.” But Oklahoma City and Tulsa are adding “renewal” to the vocabularies of those city planners. The cities have proven it works. It has worked so well that urban is cropping up in some unlikely places, as well.
OKLAHOMA CITY
Oklahoma City’s wildly successful MAPS program entered its third iteration in 2009. MAPS 3 will bring a new convention center, a downtown streetcar system, a new public park downtown and a host of other goodies. MAPS was the brainchild of Mayor Ron Norick, but the city’s current mayor, Mick Cornett, is a big fan as well. He doesn’t just talk about MAPS. He lives it.
“We love living downtown,” Cornett says. “We’re able to walk to the movies, restaurants and events at the Bricktown Ballpark, Chesapeake Arena, Myriad Botanical Gardens, Oklahoma City Museum of Arts and the Civic Center. Soon we’ll be able to see live music at the Criterion or go whitewater kayaking at the Boathouse District.”
He’s not the only one loving the downtown life. Nathan Fisher lives near downtown in the Deep Deuce neighborhood. For him, downtown’s new walkability was a critical factor in his decision to make Deep Deuce his home.
Photo by Brent Fuchs.
“I work downtown,” Fisher says. “I like being able to walk to work and walk to many of the places where I hang out. There are a lot of entertainment options, cultural activities, the park, the museums, the bars and the restaurants. Having all of that within walking distance, as well as my job, made everything pretty attractive to me.”
Fisher recently took a part-time teaching position in Norman, but other than that, he doesn’t feel like he needs his car much. If it weren’t for the occasional commute to Norman, he says, his car would go unused for two to three weeks at a time. Most of what he needs and wants is within walking distance. For things a bit farther away, he prefers his bike.
Fisher also values community and variety. His downtown neighborhood offers both and shows that the appeal of downtown isn’t limited to one kind of person.
“In my neighborhood, there’s definitely a community feel,” Fisher says. “In our development, there’s a wide variety of people, from young professionals to empty-nesters. One of the cool things about it is that it’s a really wide variety of people in different stages of life.”
The incoming streetcars mean that Fisher might be using his bike less. His neighbors will appreciate them as well. A rough guesstimate suggests that about half of the people in his community work downtown.
An essential ingredient for a successful downtown is culture. Where the arts go, people will follow. It’s something Mayor Cornett loves to brag about when he gets the opportunity.
“The growth of the arts in Oklahoma City has taken downtown living to a new level,” he says. “There are galleries, museums, music, theater, dance and an increasing amount of public art that really enhances the quality of life throughout the city. From the Skydance Bridge to sculptures to murals, public art is really making our city a great place to live.”
Photos by Natalie Green.
TULSA
“It’s a pretty unique place,” says Kyle Johnston, marketing and promotions manager for Tulsa’s Downtown Coordinating Council.
Downtown Tulsa residents enjoy a host of amenities, including easy access to the BOK Center, a premier event venue, and the OneOK Field, home of the Drillers baseball team.
The only thing lacking is a supermarket, but Johnston says that’s about to change.
“There’s not a whole lot in the immediate downtown section for groceries,” he says. “That’s something on the horizon. There are two units that were announced last week that have an opportunity for a marketplace. That’s what we want to hear.”
Downtown Tulsa has undergone a transition over the last decade, starting primarily with the renovation of the Mayo Hotel. There’s a lot of shopping to be done downtown, and there’s more on the way. There are plenty of bars and restaurants. It’s also home to a handful of museums. Who wouldn’t want all that in their backyard?
Downtown Tulsa is becoming a less expensive place to live, as proven by the large amount of millennials moving into the area. Depending on location and size, $600 to $700 per month can snag a decent apartment in the area.
Photo by Natalie Green.
“The market for downtown housing is the millennials, where you have these young professionals that want the urban lifestyle in the downtown with all the energy and activity,” says Joe Westervelt of Mapleview Associates. “About 50 percent of the market is those millennials. They’re filling up most of the apartments there and contributing to the vibrancy.”
By 2017, the number of new apartments and condos in Tulsa’s downtown will number in the hundreds. Waiting lists will be the norm. On the high end, expect to pay about $1,800 for a 1,200-square-foot apartment.
GUTHRIE
With a population of 11,000, Guthrie epitomizes small town America. Guthrie may seem like an unlikely place to find urban, but it’s there. Like many small towns, Guthrie is making an effort to revitalize its downtown area. Unlike many small towns, the effort is succeeding. The stately, old Victorian buildings that line the town’s main drag, Oklahoma Avenue, are being restored one by one. Many of them are now homes for restaurants, antique shops, fitness centers and bars.
It may also be the most walkable town in Oklahoma.
“You can bank downtown. We have a grocery store in downtown Guthrie. There are retail shops and restaurants. There are businesses and a post office. There are bars downtown. There’s just a good little mix,” says Gregory “Heady” Coleman, president of the Guthrie Chamber of Commerce.
Cherie Gordon owns the building she lives in and the art gallery, Aunt Gertrude’s House, on the first floor. She moved from Oklahoma City to Guthrie in 1997 and has never regretted the decision.
“You can walk everywhere,” she says. “I hardly ever take my car out of the garage. I walk to the post office, the grocery store, the vet and the pharmacy. There are just a lot of advantages to living downtown, and there’s a lot to do here if you choose to do it.”
Photo by Brent Fuchs.
Photo by Brent Fuchs.
Photo by Brent Fuchs.
“You can’t find a downtown like this in a lot of places. It has a rich history. Some of the downtown buildings are amazing,” Coleman says.
Downtown Guthrie is in demand. Rents range from $400 for smaller spaces to $1,500 for much larger apartments. There are roughly 60 apartments and condos in the downtown area, and keeping them filled isn’t hard.
“It can be challenging to find a place to live in downtown Guthrie,” Coleman says. “People are looking to live here more and more. As time goes on, there’s going to be more opportunities for that, so we should be able to grow. But right now space is maxed out.”
“Apartments stay rented pretty well,” realtor Sylvia Ochs says. “There’s rarely a vacancy. If somebody moves out, it’s rented pretty quickly to somebody else. There’s a lot of people that want to be downtown where the action is.”
“I think there’s a certain culture that the downtown area has that’s very encouraging,” Guthrie Mayor Steve Gentling says. “It’s a sub-community of a larger community. Everybody kind of knows everybody, you might say, but especially those people that live downtown.”
Those stately Victorian buildings qualify Guthrie’s downtown as a historical district, one of the largest in the United States.
“It’s just a wonderful, small city,” Gentling says. “It’s got a lot of really good things going for it. The people who live downtown get excited when we have festivals or parades. They’re right there and they get caught up in it.”
The cost of living is certainly cheaper.
“Taxes are cheaper here than in a large urban area or even suburbia,” Gentling says. “You’ve got convenience and don’t have to get in your car for every single errand. There’s economic value to living in downtown Guthrie versus some of the other suburban areas around.”
There are lots of commuters, Coleman says. The thirty-minute drive to downtown Oklahoma City is an easy one.
The only con to living in downtown Guthrie, Gentling says, is a lack of green space, but he says the city is moving to address that. Currently, there’s a community garden within walking distance from downtown.
Guthrie citizens want to see the renaissance keep rolling. They recently passed a sales tax to fund an even more Victorian look to the downtown. The tax will pay for projects like replacing light fixtures, creating more seating areas and laying down more cobblestone on the streets.
“But we also want to be moving forward,” Gentling says. “We have to keep those two things in balance. I think we have a good vision to make it happen and create more enthusiasm and excitement about our downtown, as well as making it more livable. From my perspective, it’s a wonderful feeling to drive downtown and see all the lights that are on on the second floors. It says, ‘Here’s a city that’s not going to sleep.’ It’s alive. It’s vibrant. There are things going on.”
BROKEN ARROW
Broken Arrow is another unlikely place to find urban, but the city aggressively started to revitalize its downtown a few years ago. Residents were sick and tired of the unused Main Street that typifies so many small, American towns. Its Rose District is a prize-winning project that brings an urban feel to a small town.
“Over the past couple of years, the area’s become quite vibrant from morning until nine or ten at night. Later on the weekends,” says Wes Smithwick, President of the Broken Arrow Chamber of Commerce. “All the parking places on Main Street are full. It’s a very different environment than what it was just a few years ago.”
Resident Ted Cundiff and his wife fell in love with the Rose District’s culture.
“It’s a mix of new and old,” resident Ted Cundiff says. “There are a lot of longtime Broken Arrow residents that remember the town as it was a long time ago. There’s a lot of that same feel and culture of a vibrant downtown community again, but now you’ve got the interest of millennials and younger kids wanting to hang out at the restaurants and do some shopping. It’s really a mix of the old and new and keeping some of the same historical culture from the past of a vibrant downtown.”
Photo by Mary Beth Ede.
Photo by Mary Beth Ede.
Like Guthrie’s downtown residents, Cundiff likes the walkability of the Rose District and the close proximity of home to everything he needs and wants.
“We wanted a residence close to where I work on Main Street,” Cundiff says. “I’m one block away from work now. We can walk downtown, have a drink, have some dinner and do a little shopping. Everything’s within walking distance.”
“It’s a new phenomenon for us because prior to the creation of the Rose District, we just had a dead Main Street,” Smithwick says. “Broken Arrow’s a community of 108,000 now. Our Main Street stopped growing 30 years ago when the town had 20,000 people in it. Main Street was dead.”
“People are moving downtown because there’s just so much going on there as far as all the entertainment and art things that are starting down there,” Broken Arrow Mayor Craig Thurmond says. “It’s really got an urban feel to it. People are looking for that, but it’s actually part of a suburban, safe community.”
Thurmond admits that the Rose District is still small, but has developed an urban, hip feel that he compares to Tulsa’s Brady District and areas in other large cities.
“It’s hard for me to describe the vibe but it does remind me of a lot of major cities that you go to, like a New York or Portland or Seattle. Cities that are vibrant and have a lot going on,” he says.
Unlike those large cities, rents are still reasonable. And, like Guthrie, Broken Arrow will be adding more living space to the Rose District. Broken Arrow wants to see more people living where they shop.
“We have empty-nesters. We have younger millennials wanting to be downtown. We have families living in the areas surrounding downtown,” Thurmond says. “I think downtown living is for everyone.”
“What has happened is there’s been this transformation back to people wanting that opportunity to shop, to eat, to have fun and to live, in the downtown area. We’re actually, in many ways, going back to where were back in the 1950s, where people want to be downtown. They still want opportunities to shop at the bigger box stores, but they’re looking for that downtown experience,” says Michael Spurgeon, Broken Arrow’s city manager.
Whether your taste runs “small town” or “big city”, you can find urban living all over the state. Even in some unlikely spots.
These three words formed the basis of the concept of Roka Bar and Asian Flavors, which recently opened at 1615 S. Utica Ave. in Tulsa. While the idea sounds simple, the care and dedication to the concept shows through the restaurant.
Chad Stanger, operating partner for Roka, says almost a year passed between the forming of the idea for Roka and the restaurant’s opening on Feb. 4. The interior of the building was completely torn out and remodeled – the actual construction on the restaurant took four months.
The restaurant features a variety of seating options, including high-backed booths with walls for privacy. The building is dividing into different areas, including two main dining rooms, a bar and two banquet rooms. Every aspect of the restaurant’s design was carefully thought out, including the music being played through 36 speakers divided into 10 different zones. The system allows for a high degree of volume control through the restaurant, Stanger says.
“We wanted clear, crisp music that doesn’t affect conversation,” he says.
The concept used for the design of the building helped inspire Damon Holdeman, executive chef for Roka, when creating the menu.
“We wanted to do a menu that matched the building,” he says. “We wanted a menu that was a chef’s menu and had a lot of skill put into it.
The menu features a large selection of Asian dishes pulled from every Asian culture, Stanger says. Holdeman talked to chefs who specialize in all the styles used to guarantee the authenticity of the menu. Staying with the idea of being a restaurant that focused on being local, many of the dishes are made with ingredients from Oklahoma farms and markets.
Photos by Chris Humphrey Photographer.
The menu includes dishes like rice paper salmon, fire grilled duck breast and bulgogi beef. Everything in the dishes – including the hoisin citrus sauce used in the rice paper salmon and the sweet potato noodles in the bulgogi beef – is made from scratch in the restaurant.
“We spent a lot of time and effort on this menu,” Stanger says. “It was a long process.”
They also spent time and effort on the restaurant’s bar area, named Sami’s Bar in honor of the large sculpture of a samurai that immediately draws a visitor’s attention when entering. The bar has a menu of lighter fare and features specialty craft cocktails created by the Roka staff, including a maple bourbon martini.
“It’s what people are looking for right now,” Holdeman says. “Craft cocktails are on the rise, and people like a little more skill put into their drinks.
The bar also features more than 40 wines and 24 types of beer, with 10 types of beer on tap. The same focus on using local ingredients in the menu was brought to the bar – bartenders make drinks using Prairie Wolf vodka, produced in Guthrie, and Maehs gin, produced in Moore, and eight of the beers served are Oklahoma beers. Even Sami, the samurai statue, is a local product created by Oklahoma chainsaw artist Clayton Coss.
No matter how full the bar is, noise-reducing panels prevent the sound from traveling into the restaurant. Stanger says despite a lively crowd during the Super Bowl, it was possible to step into the restaurant and not hear any of the bar noise.
Whether you’re looking for lunch, dinner or a drink or two for happy hour, the staff of Roka have worked hard to create an atmosphere that matches their concept: cozy, comfortably and local.
What
Roka Bar and Asian Flavor
Where
1616 S Utica Ave., Tulsa
When
11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday
[dropcap]Feb. 14[/dropcap] can be a draggy and depressing day for those without special plans, but this year a select and happy group of Tulsans walked with a spring in their step. That’s because they had been treated, the night before, to a four-hour, ten-course dinner that, though wine was not provided, left them laughing and as bubbly as champagne.
“I’m a firm regular,” one young diner says before the meal begins. Though he’s the sort of elegant hipster who would far prefer to dish out stinging, witty critiques, he has nothing but praise for Kent Monroe, the chef whose monthly dinners, semi-clandestine and spread by word of mouth, drew this crowd together. “I got tickets before I saw the menu. He’s a genius.”
To cheers and applause, Chef Kent comes out. He looks about the same age as Beaver Cleaver’s older brother, and, as he describes the courses to the rapt attentive crowd, you can see the same boyish exuberance. He’s a science nerd. A few amuse-bouches have been shared, including a “salad” whose entire flavor has been compressed into a greenish sorbet (yes, Kent is fascinated by molecular gastronomy), and now the diners can see, in the kitchen beyond, chefs strewing mounds of rare, expensive wild mushrooms into big soup bowls. There’s black trumpet, hedgehog mushrooms and even shavings of white truffles. They then put little mounds of powders beside the mushrooms. Kent made the powders from a stock of button, shiitake, portobello and porcini mushrooms. The bowls are brought before each diner, and a rich creamy broth is carefully poured on. Then you stir. The flavors are sharp, decadently rich, unforgettable.
“Just as you wonder why it’s taking so long,” the hipster says, “you see that beautiful plate and you say, ‘Oh, yeah. That’s why!’”
“At first I thought I’d serve straight mushroom soup,” Chef Kent says a few days later. “Then I got the idea of serving heaps of mushrooms on top of a thick mushroom stock. Then I tried to make the mushroom stock thick and shiny like colored glass, but that didn’t work so I settled for making each stock into a powder.”
He’s eating at Mandarin Taste, a small Chinese restaurant on south Sheridan Road whose dedication to providing rigorously authentic and carefully prepared dishes from all regions of China rivals Kent’s own. He tries a spoonful of spicy pig brains with tofu, and he loves it – “it’s like pork butter!” he exclaims – but he’s so wrapped up in his discussion of food concepts and theory that the food he’s eating takes second place. He once studied astrophysics at Rice University in Houston, and someone asks him how he feels about abandoning science.
“Abandoning science? Never!” Kent exclaims with passion. “Cooking stands at the intersection of all sciences! How can you understand the structure of meat without biology and chemistry? How can you understand cooking without understanding thermodynamics, heat transfer, osmosis, equalization of pressures – and that’s all physics!”
He goes on to provide a long description of how he tried to develop little flavor pearls that would float in liquid.
“It set at 90 degrees, and it wouldn’t float, so I used foam from an aquarium pump, loaded it into a syringe, injected it into each sphere and put it into an ice bath,” he says. “Too much work! Now I’m hoping to buy a chamber vacuum sealer secondhand; maybe I can use that.”
For Kent, planning an entree means solving a succession of science problems, and he loves it even more than eating the entree.
Chef Kent uses his background in science to create new dishes. Photo by Chris Humphrey Photographer.
Amazingly, Kent has no formal culinary training whatsoever except for a short stint at Bodean Market.
“Except for my childhood,” Kent corrects. “In a way, I’m a product of World War II.”
His mother is German, his father Japanese. Both his grandmothers remarried, and both of the new husbands were American soldiers. His parents met in California, fell in love and moved to Tulsa where Kent was raised in a house with a huge garden.
“We grew up cooking,” Kent says, “and not typically American food either. We had steak and potatoes once a year. The rest of the time, it was tabouli, sukiyaki, things from all over.”
Perhaps that’s why Kent is fascinated by every method of cooking.
“I’m self-taught, 100 percent self-taught,” he says. “My long-term goal is to learn about every method of cooking and try it at least once.”
You’ll find quite a few of them at the dinners. “Nothing you taste,” counsels one diner, “is what you expect.”
You might find a nest of lurid green sea beans, a salty, smoky coastal delicacy, with a big, bright yellow duck egg yolk in the center, accented by a dollop of bubbly pomelo foam and a yellow scoop of chive gel. You’ve never tasted anything like it and suddenly it’s your favorite dish. Then out comes duck with two sauces, one a shiny white, smoked grapefruit, the other a smoky dark fenugreek. This is followed by steelhead trout swimming amidst two bubbling and flavorful foams, one blood orange and the other pine. A piece of crispy skin shaped like a sail completes the nautical image. Just before dessert there’s a straight steak and potatoes.
“I wanted to serve the steak with cold chawanmushia [Japanese custard flavored with seaweed],” Kent says, “but I had to balance the preferences of my guests against my whims, so I gave them a straight meat course.”
These courses are not easy to plate, and several chefs toil more or less nonstop during the four-hour meal. Joel Bein has volunteered to help. He’s an expert in smoking, and his barbecue truck Rub has deservedly garnered rave reviews and a loyal following. Then there’s Josh Vitt. He doesn’t look much older than Kent, but he’s been in the restaurant business for 22 years after graduating from Florida Culinary Institute. Though today he follows Kent’s lead, Vitt holds pop-up dinners of his own from time to time, and foodies know to reserve a place the moment they hear of them. Josh runs a catering company, and that’s where Kent works during the 28 days each month that the Un-Restaurant is closed. It’s also the location of the Un-Restaurant, but Kent told me that he will be moving these events to Kitchen 66.
“It’s an incubator for food entrepreneurs,” Kent says. Founded, fostered and funded by the Lobeck-Taylor Family Foundation, Kitchen 66 gives would-be restaurateurs what they need to cross the bridge between pipe dreams and a real restaurant: access to a professional kitchen, help with licensing and assistance with planning and pricing. It’s located in the Sun Building, the tall, golden downtown tower built by Sunoco 60 years ago. But all that’s in the future as the Valentine’s dinner draws to a close.
“That chef’s an up-and-comer!” gushes one satisfied customer. She works for oil companies and has tried every Michelin-starred restaurant located in a city with oil, so she knows. Pretty much everyone is gushing and happy by now.
“This is a family reunion with family you’ve never met,” says the hipster.
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