Sometimes I think the health of the nation should not be judged by the strength of voter turnout or the willingness to do jury duty but by the popularity of Bob Ross.
After all, what could be more inherently democratic than Ross’s earnest conviction that, within every man, woman, and child with access to a television set, there resided a budding artist? Ross, whose program The Joy of Painting was originally shown on public television from 1983 to 1994, advanced the appealing notion that, by buying paints, an easel, and some stretched canvas, viewers could paint all manner of bucolic scenes: imposing mountain ranges, calm seas, peaceful farms, magnificent forests. Just take out your brush, tap, tap, tap, and accept the fact that, as Ross was famous for saying, there are no mistakes, merely happy accidents. No matter that your mountains might look like skyscrapers or that your farmhouse resembles a brown blob. Tune in next time, and maybe you’ll get it right.
Read Full Article »