Billy Wins! The King of Kong

This summer I was invited to have some of my work in the iam8bit show in LA. It was a fun, crazy trip, and I realized I never blogged about my pieces!

I had two pieces in the show, and I’ll show you the second at a later date. The first piece is titled, “Billy Wins!” Please tell me you’ve watched the documentary “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters“! It is such a great film, full of fascinating people, one of whom is Billy Mitchell. Billy claims to be the reigning champ of the classic arcade game, Donkey Kong, and in the movie, his arch-nemesis, Steve Wiebe, attempts to pin him down to a championship battle. The highlight of the movie for me (and I’m sure many others) is Billy Mitchell. He is so interesting, in a cocky and self-absorbed way. I drew my inspiration for this piece from him. Billy Mitchell has conquered Donkey Kong and in an ultimate act of victory, lies down on a Donkey Kong-skin rug, giving his trademark thumbs-up sign. Of course Billy would not be without his favorite star spangled tie, and his long flowing locks and full beard complete the look.

Billy Wins!

Billy Wins! at the gallery

Me and Billy!

What I wouldn’t give to have a photo of Billy Mitchell with little Billy!

I hope you like him too! If you really really like him, he is for sale on the iam8bit gallery website.

What a trip!

I’ve got to share some highlights of my trip to LA last week. When I was asked to submit artwork for the iam8bit show, my husband and I decided to make a trip out of it. As soon as the opening date was confirmed, we booked our hotel reservations, bought plane tickets, and secured spots at a taping of Conan!

Here’s a quick video of me being interviewed by Aaron Bleyaert for the Team Coco Fan Friday! Everyone at Conan was SO NICE. That’s what stuck with us. Here you go…

http://i.cdn.turner.com/v5cache/TBS/cvp/teamcoco_drupal_embed.swf?context=teamcoco_embed_offsite&videoId=15685

Instead of boring everyone with a play by play, I’ll just share some photos of the trip. 

Alice has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. So there.

This is something I had to see in LA. It’s a wall that Elliott Smith took a photo in front of for the album “Figure 8”. I stood there and cried like a baby! All the lyrics people had written up there…it was touching.

Here’s a photo of me and “Billy Wins”, one of my pieces in the SUPER iam8bit show featuring Billy Mitchell on a DK skin rug.

I’m playing Galaga, projected onto a giant screen at the SUPER iam8bit show! The high score won the actual game, and I was just a *little* short!

“Dust of Hyrule”, my other piece in the SUPER iam8bit show. It played ocarina music from the very first 8bit Legend of Zelda NES game.

My Andy and Conan dolls were hoping to meet Team Coco!

Paul and I on the set of Conan!

Look! Aaron Bleyaert (Bley) and I after he interviewed me for Team Coco’s Fan Friday!

Oh yeah! Those smiles started to hurt after a while and lasted for hours!

This is just a random RED VELVET PANCAKES shot. The Griddle Cafe in LA: you must go.

Do you know how long I had to wait to take this picture? OK,  two minutes, but it seemed like a while.

It was an amazing trip! I loved LA. Coming from Austin, where the high was 107 all last week, the weather was absolutely spectacular and all of the places we went were beautiful. I’ll go back anytime!