Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1470106
1 8 8 3 | P E R S P E C T I V E 7 7 That was just the beginning. It was then time for the show's incomparable set decorator, Carla Curry, to do her magic. Carla had done four seasons of Yellowstone with Taylor and was well aware of his passion for authenticity. She brought in a world of period antiques—a piano, lighting, paintings, gambling tables and taxidermy—but the backbar at Pearls was undistinguished and bothered her. She searched everywhere, refusing to rest until she found the perfect Victorian top of a 120-year- old ornate mahogany buff et to integrate into and completely transform the backbar. 1883 is the story of a group of people traveling by wagon train on a dangerous, uncertain and often lethal journey from Fort Worth to the high plains of the American West to fi nd a better life, realize their dreams or honor a commitment. After fi nishing with Hell's Half Acre, the team turned to the challenge of the wagons. The wagon train consisted of more than twenty period-authentic wagons and they all had to be loaded onto trucks and transported to locations stretching from Texas to Montana and back to Texas. Each wagon was unique with its own individual character and specifi c order in the wagon train. Because scenes (as well as episodes) were not shot in chronological order, the wagons were a logistic and physical nightmare, but the amazing Art Directors, Yvonne Boudreaux and Lisa Ward, managed to transform them into the integrated and very real wagon train called for in the script. We made duplicates of wagons that would be destroyed by fi re or tornado. The tornado-damaged wagons, for example, would have to be seen both pre- and post-disaster. D. CARTER HOUSE. AFTER. SET PHOTO E. WAGON TRAIN. ILLUSTRATION BY KATHRYN YINGLING, IN PEN/INK AND WATERCOLOR. F. WAGON TRAIN. SET PHOTO. D F E