by Peter Berryman
The Drone Zone
As suggested in a recent New York Times article by Cameron Morfit, Bob Ross, host and subject of television's The Joy of Painting, was more a superb mass hypnotist than a great oil painter. Thanks to syndicated reruns, he's still a superb mass hypnotist, even though he died in 1995. I've come under his spell a number of times, being snagged as I channel past celebrity bowl-offs and Martha Stewart Holiday Sandblasting specials. You've caught the dude too I'm sure, or been caught by him, with his 1970's puffball hairdo, trim beard, and soothing patter, as he dabs and dabs at his canvas of usually mountains, water, and trees.
The paintings themselves are pretty much the definition of bad art. In the late 60s, in Vancouver, I answered a classified ad that said something like, "Artists wanted, long hair OK." I had done some painting and illustrating by then, definitely had the hair, and was certainly jobless. It turns out that there were two kinds of positions offered. You could sit in a warehouse all day long, with other artsy hippies, cranking out paintings as fast as you were able. If I remember correctly, the pay was 75 cents per finished painting. Or, you could go from door to door, describing yourself as a broke college student, pretending these warehouse paintings were your own. That netted 75 cents per painting too. OR, you could do both. The painting supplies and frames were furnished. The consumer forked over $25 and up per masterpiece, and you got, at best, $1.50 for your trouble. Maybe it was the biggest mistake of my life, but I decided this line of work wasn't in my best interest.
But I wonder if that's where Bob Ross got his start. He surely had the hair, and his paintings were very much like the samples I was shown back in Vancouver. We used to call this style "Park Art," because it seemed that city parks were another common outlet for these creations.
Bob made his own fresh deal with the muses, though, when the creation of the painting, not the painting itself, became his art. I do believe he was well aware of this, and even the name of the show suggests that he dug the journey more than the destination. But it goes a bit further away from the original idea than that, and instead of being called The Joy of Painting, should have been called The Joy of Watching Bob Ross Painting. Most of the viewers of the show do not paint, but as Morfit says, "They watch because The Joy of Painting is the most relaxing show on television." He quotes Matt Lauer as telling Rosie O'Donnel that Matt found it hard not to lapse into "a little Bob Ross coma" while watching the show. I put the Teletubbies up there as equivalent slumbermeisters, though the Tubs, which my mom watches to daze herself, actually have a tad more angst than Bob Ross.
Bob Ross did have a soothing, comforting manner, an uncomplicated format, and familiar themes, but beyond that, there is something transfixing about watching someone else draw or paint. I remember watching Miss Frances (Frances Rappaport Horwich) on Ding Dong School back in the 50s and being mesmerized by her painting thick black lines on white paper with a round camel hair brush, shiny with the paint, while talking in the same sort of friendly drone that Bob Ross used. Years later, in the 70s, I zoned out while watching the pencil tip of my fellow illustrator, Randy Stothard, as she drew lines on the page inches from my nose while explaining something to me in that hypnotic tone. Dreamily staring at the smudge leaving the pencil point was like being one with the fundamental extrusion of matter. The viewing of the process is a completely different and more mood-altering experience than having a static gander at the finished product.
Since music has to move through time to exist, I think the creative process of making music is usually easier to appreciate than the creative process of making visual art. As a matter of fact, particularly with improvisational music, the invention of the music and the appreciation of it happen simultaneously. The process is the product, in a way. It's like looking at a finished Van Gogh and experiencing the trance induced by watching the earless wonder move his brush across the canvas at the same time.
This goofy zone isn't always a positive thing. For years, The Muzak People have blown us mindlessly through the malls, swirling the dollars out of our pockets like so many autumn leaves. I don't trust myself as it is, and am fearful that I'm overly susceptible to the Vulcan mind-meld. Once a shrink tried to hypnotize me and I was so paranoid I'm afraid he didn't even get past the ticket booth. Then again, in strange motels in far away lands, the tranquil doorways beckon irresistibly, and can zombie me willingly through Bob's show, then out the door, across the berm, and into the timeless mall, far from the jangling underpasses of, say, Scranton.
I can move myself into this mood by noodling on the guitar much more easily than by drawing or painting. When it comes to self induced flatlining, noodling has it over doodling, at least for me. But speaking of noodles, all of the senses seem to have their trance triggers. With taste, chocolate can do it. With touch, it's the patting of the dog, the fingering of the worry beads, the jiggling of peanuts. Music does it for hearing, and doodling for vision. Mother Nature, along with the aromatherapists and shampoo magnates, has given us countless ways to nose ourselves into the void.
You would be relieved to find how glad I am that music has more facets than this one, but for the time being, you'll find me in the food court, having a Jamocha shake with Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, Po, Bob Ross, and Izzie the patworthy pup, all of us blinklessly sucking along with Greensleeves by 101 Strings.
Bibliography
"The Mellow, and Undying, Magic of Happy Little Trees" by Cameron Morfit, The New York Times, Sunday, November 18, 2001