The New York City Conan Art Odyssey Extravaganza

(or: How I Had To Change My Underwear After Seeing This Giant Damn Painting)

(or: This Is How You Trick Your Friends Into Looking At Your Vacation Photos)

Sunday, October 30, 2011. Brooke and I went to NYC to see the NYCOCOMOCA gallery display of Conan O'Brien Fan Art at the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle (see previous blog posts for back story). I can honestly say that walking up to the front glass panels of that absurdly huge shiny skyscraper and seeing that absurdly huge shiny redheaded man with my name and signature sprawled across the bottom was one of the peak experiences of my whole life up to this point.

The gallery itself was really great - 50 pieces of Conan-related art in all sorts of media, from oils and acrylics to sculptures made of crochet yarn and one life-size statue made entirely of colored pencils:

In addition to the front of the building, my painting was used on all of the in-building signage (the bottom two floors are a very upscale shopping mall, and second floor center was the gallery exhibit)

It was also used as the image that was sent out in press releases, so it showed up
 in New York Magazine and Time Out New York.

The staff at Lead Dog Marketing and the gallery attendants were the most wonderful hosts, they made us feel like part of the family. Thanks again to Carter, Diana, Aly, Sarah, Joe, D.J., Austin, Karim (and everyone whose names are escaping me at the moment) and Brian from TBS as well.

On Halloween Night, we got to attend the first night of taping of Conan's week of NYC shows.

We waited a long time after to try to meet Conan, but it was just too crazy. We did, however, get to meet Andy Richter, and I gave him a sketch portrait I had hastily scribbled on the plane ride out there.

And we also got to meet La Bamba, who is way more talented in real life
than you get to see on the show - and a damn nice guy:

There was a 500-lb robotic, huggomatic Conan Loveseat at the exhibit, built by DeepLocal- I have to find the pic I got on there with La Bamba and Pierre, and scan it later... but here was a fun one with me and Brooke:

The exhibit still hasn't been shown on the Conan show - we went back there at least a dozen times hoping to meet Conan or get on TV. Finally the Thursday morning we were leaving, a remote crew came and shot some footage... of the gallery, of the front of the building, and a bit of an interview with me and some strange guy that was wandering through the exhibit. No way to know yet if they will ever use the footage.

Conan finally came to see the gallery a couple of hours after we left NYC to come home to Denver. It was terribly disappointing not to get to meet him. BUT - we met a wonderful staff member named Amanda outside the theater on Halloween, and gave her a couple of copies of my painting, to hopefully get a copy to Conan, and have him sign one for me. She really got the job done, and he wrote a very nice note on it for me!

"To Dustin - You have captured my inner sadness perfectly.
Thanks for sharing your incredible talent. Your friend, Conan."

It really was a wonderful trip, and we had a great time.
 I'm going to have to do more of this gallery stuff, it could get addictive!