Dispatches: Bob Ross’s Strategies for Survival

Outside Podcast

Sports, Wilderness

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bob Ross is one of the most beloved painters of his generation, and he focused almost exclusively on the outdoors. Depicting the “happy trees” and “friendly mountains” of Alaska and the greater western US for his TV show, The Joy of Painting, he earned a following that has only grown since his death. But surprisingly little is known about his life. Famously private, he granted only a handful of interviews and never really spoke about his deeper motivations. So how should we remember Bob Ross, and what does his art say about the natural world? Data journalist Walter Hickey took on these questions, analyzing all 381 of the paintings Ross did for his show. What he found will have you looking at Bob Ross in a whole new light.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Costa sunglasses, made for people who live on the water.
0:06.0	Like Kimmy Werner. How do you explain to people, like what you do?
0:12.0	Gosh, I mean that that's always been hard for me I think normally I'll say I'm a
0:17.7	free diving spearfisher woman which really confuses people.
0:21.6	Kimi Werner is someone whose life revolves around the ocean.
0:24.4	She's a former competitive spearfisher and a former chef but gave up both of those
0:29.0	careers so that she could spend more time trying to return the ocean to its
0:32.2	former beauty, in abundance.
0:34.5	I guess I'd say I turned into a speaker, a filmmaker, an advocate for the environment,
0:41.9	and I also just love to cook the food that I catch.
0:46.0	When she was in competitive spearfishing, she was at the top of the sport, but as she kept doing
0:50.9	it, she found that her heart wasn't in it.
0:53.5	So she left.
0:54.4	I could see the ocean changing.
0:56.3	I could see the resources were different
0:59.4	from when I was a kid.
1:00.6	The fish stocks were different, you you know what was happening to the
1:03.5	quarrel everything it's not every day that an athlete connects to the sponsor
1:07.4	after leaving their sport but it was the same values that pushed Kimmy towards
1:11.5	conservation work that brought her together with
1:13.5	Costa. They both prioritize the health of the ocean. I mean it's just the perfect
1:19.6	fit. They're a brand that number one they're born in fishing and so definitely I feel a sense of belonging there but
	...

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