Ms. Lucy / Groups 2009 — Helen K. Garber Fine Art Photography, Santa Fe NM

Miss Lucy is a 1955 Shasta Trailer that I found in the forest near Idyllwild, CA. With the help and support of my husband Stuart, Banning Discount RV, the members of Group SC 2009 — An Intimate View of Southern California — we turned her into the first ever mixed-media mobile projection hub, the center of the installation.

Duce, well known graffiti writer and my collaborator on A Night View Collaboration, used her exterior as a surface to illustrate the economic conditions of Southern California in 2009. In the meantime, 50 photographers documented their resident Southern California city over the course of the same year and our editor, Nancy-Louise Jones turned them into 20 image stories.

Miss Lucy was set up to sit in the middle of the installation, with 4 HD machines projecting images outwards through a window cut on each side of the trailer. The images were projected on to 4, 8-foot diameter screens, each set 90 degrees from each other. The 50 stories were divided geographically — East, West, North and South. The rear-projection screens were designed by the internationally acclaimed architectural firm, MINARC.

After presenting the installation 3 times locally we ended the project. Miss Lucy now permanently resides in the San Diego Automotive Museum in Balboa Park, San Diego, on exhibit as an illustration of how artists use vehicles as components for their creations.

She is named Miss Lucy after Lucille Ball — she was probably built in 1954, the year I was born and during the time I Love Lucy was originally broadcast on CBS. Each week Lucy Ricardo had another madcap, screwball idea and she always managed to convince her friends to go along and help make them happen. I adored the television show and her character inspired my way of life.