Eye of the beholder

You’d never know it from the look of Pink Slip, but I’m an okay designer. I can pull together signs, flyers, brochures, etc. that don’t look half-bad. I used to do this one of the companies I worked for, and my “talent” was borne of necessity. No budget, ergo…What I’d do back then was collect signs, flyers, brochures, etc. that I liked and figure out how to modify them. My corporate pieces didn’t use much by way of images. No money for stock photo, let alone artwork, back in those days. If I couldn’t find something to use in the Microsoft clipart portfolio, I was strictly the written word, fonts, colors, shading… But things looked professional. (Okay. I once designed a product logo that was pretty lame-o.)

Now I put my hand in, on occasion, for a non-profit organization I do some volunteering with. My creativity relies on clipart, on images I can borrow from the web and play around with.

But what I can’t do is draw or paint.

Oh, I kept up with the other equally non-talented kids until midway through grammar school, when the kids with talent – like my friend Bernadette – moved away from the pack.

I could envision things. I could have big, bold ideas. But I couldn’t execute worth a damn.

On occasion, I think it might be fun to take a drawing or painting class for beginners, but I’m pretty sure that anything I did would be dreadful and wooden. As they no doubt would have been if, back in the day, I’d taken painting lessons from Bob Ross on PBS’ The Joy of Painting, a show I’d never even heard of until I spotted an article in the NY Times the other day on his works of art. (The show ran in the 1980’s and 1990’s.) Which, to the eyes of this beholder, look plenty dreadful and wooden in their own right.

Admittedly, I’m a ferocious snob, but seriously folks. If I could paint, would I want it to look like this?

I mean, I’ve got better looking art on the gallery wall in my living room.

And for these art works – done by my sister-in-law (still life), a colleague’s ex-wife (abstract blue), outsider artist who was working in the studio at St. Francis House (Fenway Park), a friend (Irish calligraphy), photographer friend of my sister’s in the wayback (green silkscreen of trees), Jack Yeats woodcut (Irish cottage woodcut), street artists (Berlin, Paris, Budapest) – I didn’t pay anywhere near what an original Bob Ross goes for on eBay. There an authenticated painting can run in the tens of thousands of dollars. (You can get amateur versions, painted by people in the style of Bob Ross, and using brushes and paints he sold, for a lot less. And they don’t look all that different than the real things.)

If someone told me my only option was filling my walls with Thomas Kincade lit-up elf cottages, Margaret Keane’s big-eyed child paintings, or Bob Ross landscapes, I’m pretty sure I’d go Zen and leave them all blank.

Anyway, the occasion of the Times article was the acquisition of a number of Ross’ paintings by the Smithsonian.

Along with those paintings – and  Ross was quite prolific: for each of the hundreds of shows Ross did, he produced three paintings – the National Museum of American History acquired:

…a converted stepladder that was used as an easel during the first season of the show, and two handwritten notebooks that were used to plan the production of Seasons 2 and 3…

The Smithsonian also acquired fan letters sent to Mr. Ross, including some written after he died of lymphoma in 1995 at 52. “These letters help reveal the significant impact Ross has had on diverse individuals and communities, helping them to express and feel better about themselves,” Mr. Jentsch said.

Okay. Now that I know Bob Ross helped people “express and feel better about themselves”, I feel a teensie-weensie bit narsty. But not enough to retract my sentiments on the caliber of Ross’ work.

In any event, it’s now in the Smithsonian:

The paintings and other objects officially became part of the museum’s permanent collection on March 22.

For now, the Smithsonian has no plans to display the paintings.

Which would apparently have suited Bob Ross just fine.

Here’s what he had to say about fame:

“Most painters want recognition, especially by their peers. I achieved that a long time ago with TV. I don’t need any more.”

Ah, well. Bob Ross will live on long after I’m forgotten. But is it art? Not in my book (or on my walls).