Everybody loves Bob
Bob Ross’s posthumous show at the Penticton Art Gallery has attracted thousands of visitors
Entire generations have a better appreciation of the Joys of Painting thanks to Bob Ross. The legendary artist, whose popularity continues to rise 25 years after his death, is having his works shown at the Penticton Art Gallery.
The Bob Ross Exhibit has brought over 10,000 visitors to the gallery so far, gallery curator Paul Crawford said.
Ross’s rock-star appeal is giving the local gallery a much-needed boost. While recent years have been financially challenging for the venue, “The revenue just through our gift shop was mindnumbing compared to a normal summer exhibition year,” Crawford said.
The show will have run for 71 days by the time it comes to an end on Sept. 13 and this exhibit alone is expected to account for nearly half of the gallery’s annual attendance of 16,000-20,000, he said, adding the gross revenue will raise at least a quarter of the annual budget.
Although a hit with locals from the South Okanagan, most of the visitors to the gallery are visiting from out of town.
But while it’s a rare treat for any art gallery to generate such a healthy amount of revenue, Crawford says one thing is even sweeter.
“Seeing all those kids come in with their parents and seeing the excitement on their faces, and really look at these paintings. It’s like visiting old friends. The sense of nostalgia. People are really curious to see these artifacts in the flesh.”
It wasn’t the end result of Ross’s paintings that inspired the masses so much as the way he invited each viewer to be part of the creation.
Even art haters can recognize Ross’s disarming voice, which softly described the serene wilderness landscapes he loved to paint.
He often opened up about his own life, and one of his gifts was the ability to relate his sorrows into symbols of beauty, as depicted in his artwork. Ross always found clever ways of turning any mistake on his canvas into a tree or a bird (therefore changing it from a mistake to a “happy little accident”), and in every episode, viewers could count on him literally rejoicing over the simple pleasure of cleaning his brush.
“He may not be one of the most sophisticated artists out there, but definitely one of the most well-known,” said Crawford, who remembers a time when there were just four English channels on television.
Anybody old enough to remember that era can appreciate the retro living room that’s part of the Bob Ross Exhibit, where guests can watch episodes of the “Joy of Painting” from the comfort of grandma couches — and everything’s beige.
“You’d be flippin’ around the dial, flipping endlessly hoping something better comes on. It was only a matter of time before Bob Ross entered into your universe,” Crawford recalls, as Bob Ross’s program, “The Joy of Painting” would air regularly on PBS.
“It was always captivating to see what was going to happen — like a murder mystery, you get sucked in and want to see what the outcome of his canvas was going to be — you had to hang in there to see what was the end result going to be. It was like pulling the mask off the bad guy at the end of a Scooby Doo episode.”
Crawford says Ross was instrumental in his own career path, even though he hasn’t always worked in the arts industry.
“Watching Bob Ross as a kid lit a fire in me that smoldered for the better part of 30 yeast before I realized I had a real passion for art.”
Even though the Bob Ross exhibit was expected to draw larger audiences, Crawford is astonished to see the volume of traffic.
“It’s been amazing to see everybody’s reaction and their willingness to attend. Tons of people standing in line for over an hour on a hot summer day to see the show,” he said, after counting more than 700 visitors on the opening day.
Among the 300 shows Crawford has curated over his career, he says this has been one of the easiest to deal with. Staffers have been “absolutely amazing — everyone stepped up” by putting in extra hours when needed and remaining positive.
“Everyone’s coming out beaming with a huge smile on their face. It’s a drag knowing there are thousands of people who weren’t able to make it because of COVID. And we would have loved to have a huge party to be a much bigger affair, but my regrets are small and rather insignificant compared to all the amazing things we got out of it.”
Although PBS hasn’t produced any new episodes since 1994 — more than a decade before the launch of YouTube — Bob Ross has become an internet celebrity in the quarter century since his death (by sheer coincidence, the Penticton Art Gallery launched the Bob Ross Exhibit on the 25th anniversary of Ross’s passing, on July 4, 2020).
Crawford sees an opportunity to share the success of the Bob Ross Exhibit with other venues across Western Canada, and he’s hoping to take the show on the road.
That will require permission from the owner of the artwork, which is an American company called Bob Ross Inc., which has a collection of 1,176 pieces.
Executive assistant to the president Sarah Strohl couldn’t say how realistic Crawford’s goal is to exhibit the show elsewhere, but said she “would love to have as many people seeing as much of his work as possible.”
Strohl attributes the popularity of the local exhibit to “The Bob Ross effect — when people you would never expect at an art gallery to show up at an art gallery.”
Not a day has gone by since the 1980s when his program hasn’t appeared on some form of public broadcasting, she said. And while North Americans have been familiar with Bob Ross from the beginning, many international audiences have only recently discovered his work.
“People who weren’t even alive when the show came out are now obsessed and watching it. Who could have predicted how popular he would become?,” Strohl said.
The exhibition closes Sept. 13. The gallery will be extending its hours on the final three nights for those stragglers who are waiting until the last minute.
Admission is by donation, suggested at $5 per person.