How I Learned to Drive images
Allen is always canny. In planning for this show, he half-settled on a design concept but left lots of options indefinite to begin with. That meant there was nothing to build the first weekend, so he and Tom and I got together and talked some ideas over.
We also visited a consumer electronics retailer and discovered that the two digital projectors in the original plan were going to set us back $1500 more than the budget allowed. So in a way it's a good thing that not all the details were set right from the start.
The second weekend finished up with Tom fitting these sort of Tetris pieces into a big picture. They will become projection screens where Allen will throw up stop signs and other images. Well, strictly speaking, that won't happen till they are stood up vertically (as you can see a couple of pages further on).
A capable crew showed up on June 3-4. Now pay close attention, because whether you want me to or not, I'm going to tell you where to look in the photo at right.
Allen thinks in 1-to-1 scale, that is, he doesn't work from drawings or models. Now gaze at the vertical black flats at the back of the group, the chalk outlines there. That's how the screens got designed. He and Tom drew them up on the wall, measured them, and hit Mary and Jameson and me with the digits. I cut the lumber and the other two assembled the frames. Which Tom laid out on the floor, back up at the top of the page. Probably by the time you see another photo, they will be attached to legs and installed.
Before making the screen units, we built an easy wall and two hard ones. The easy one is the one with the chalk, which would soon be erased. If you look at Jameson, seated on your right, you'll see a black background and a light-colored vertical element next to his elbow. That's one of the hard walls. These are made of single flats, but they are suspended two feet above the deck.
I'm missing a weekend, so my next pix will no doubt show a far more complete set.
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