Why we turned to PBS: 50 causes over 50 years

In 1994, discuss present host Phil Donahue requested Bob Ross to “say out loud your work won’t ever hold in a museum.” “Properly, possibly it is going to,” Ross replied, although museums weren’t in fact the purpose: On “The Pleasure of Portray” anybody might be an artist. The self-esteem was easy: Paint an image in 26 minutes. The reveals have been taped in a single sitting — a sundown, some clouds, a mighty mountain, and, within the final second, an enormous pine. It made for mesmerizing tv, then and now. The present ran for 11 seasons between 1983 and 1994, and in 2015 turned a viral sensation on streaming platform Twitch, the place it met a wholly new viewers, beforehand unfamiliar with the calming scrape of a palette knife or the comforts of Ross’ soothing voice. “There aren’t any errors,” he assured viewers, “solely joyful accidents.” In March 2019, 24 years after his demise, a number of of Ross’ work turned a part of the everlasting assortment of the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of American Historical past.