The Artwork No One's Ever Told the Story Of: Benson's Corner Office & the Pelicans Season Ticket

Christina Pappion
1 day ago
3 min read

Some of the most meaningful pieces I've ever painted never made it into a press release or a feature article. They just quietly lived in the spaces they were made for, seen by thousands of fans who probably never knew who painted them. This is the story behind two of those pieces — and why, even without the spotlight, they mean as much to me as anything I've ever done.

The Corner Office: Painting a Tribute to Mr. Benson

In 2018, the Saints opened the Corner Office Specialty Cocktails & Tavern, a space at Gate D next to Champions Square built in honor of the team's late owner, Tom Benson, who had passed away that same year. The space told his story through more than 100 personal effects, photographs, and memorabilia, along with a full re-creation of his actual office — right down to the last detail.

I was honored to paint several murals for that space, capturing Mr. Benson the way generations of Saints fans actually remember him: full of joy, dancing his famous "Benson Boogie" with his umbrella on the sideline after every win. That image — an 82-year-old man who bought a team nobody believed in, dancing like nobody was watching after finally bringing New Orleans a championship — is one of the most iconic pictures in this city's sports history. Getting to paint it, more than once, and have it live inside the Superdome itself, is something I still can't fully put into words.

Mr. Benson wasn't just a team owner to this city. He kept the Saints in New Orleans when the rest of the league wanted them gone. He bought the Pelicans and kept professional basketball here too. Painting a tribute to a man who meant that much to so many people carried a weight I felt with every brushstroke.

A Bittersweet Ending

The Caesars Superdome recently underwent a massive, multi-year renovation. As part of that transformation, the Corner Office — including Mr. Benson's recreated office and the murals I painted for that space — was removed. The artifacts were safely stored, but the space itself, and the murals that lived inside it, are gone.

It's a strange kind of loss, as an artist. That artwork existed in one of the most iconic buildings in the country, seen by tens of thousands of fans over the years, and now it exists only in photographs. But I'll always be grateful I got to be part of honoring Mr. Benson's legacy in that building, even for the years that it stood.

The 2019–2020 Pelicans Season Ticket

Around that same era, I was also honored to design the artwork used for the New Orleans Pelicans' 2019–2020 season ticket — a stylized painting of the team standing shoulder to shoulder, backs to the camera, "NEW ORLEANS" stitched across their warm-up jackets, facing the court at the Smoothie King Center.

There's something different about painting artwork that isn't just hung on a wall, but printed and placed directly into the hands of thousands of season ticket holders. Every fan who held that ticket, scanned it at the gate, or kept it as a souvenir after the season, was holding a piece of my work without necessarily even knowing my name. That kind of quiet reach is a different kind of honor than a gallery show or a feature article — it's art that becomes part of people's everyday game-day ritual.

Still Standing at Smoothie King Center

Unlike the Superdome pieces, some of the artwork I created for the Pelicans organization is still up today inside Smoothie King Center — a mix of pieces celebrating the team, the city, and New Orleans culture, displayed throughout the arena for fans to see on game nights. I'm grateful that at least part of this body of work gets to keep living where it was made to be seen. The artwork below along with the large mural of it in real life!

Why I Wanted to Tell This Story

No one has ever written about either of these projects before — not the Corner Office murals, not the Pelicans ticket artwork. They existed quietly, doing their job, without ever getting their own moment. But both of these projects represent some of the most meaningful work I've done for this city's sports teams, and I wanted them documented somewhere, in my own words, before more time passes.

To the Benson family, the Saints, and the Pelicans organization — thank you for trusting me with pieces of your history. Even the ones that are gone now still mattered, and I'm grateful I got to make them.

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