DETOURS

Adam Monahan:

I'm recording in this place. And tell me again what you had for breakfast.

Colleene Fesko:

I had a lot of coffee and toast with ricotta cheese.

Adam Monahan:

This is Colleene.

Colleene Fesko:

My name is Colleene Fesko, and my company is Colleene Fesko Works of Art, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Adam Monahan:

Colleene has been appraising paintings on GBH's Antiques Roadshow since the very first episode. In our database, you have done 168 appraisals.

Colleene Fesko:

Oh, my gosh. Wow.

Adam Monahan:

Yeah.

Colleene Fesko:

That's impressive.

Adam Monahan:

Let's see here, you've done Frederick Remington, you've done Edward Byer, Oscar Schlemer. Guess how many Bob Ross's there are?

Colleene Fesko:

None.

Adam Monahan:

Bob Ross was the gentle mastermind behind another beloved PBS show, the Joy of Painting.

Bob Ross:

Welcome back. Certainly glad you decided to spend a half hour with us today. I think you'll enjoy the little painting we're going to do and I hope you take the time to paint along.

Adam Monahan:

The show was on air for about a decade and in almost every episode, TV viewers watched Bob paint a landscape that usually included happy little trees, fluffy clouds, and almighty mountains.

Bob Ross:

And just sort of blend it all together.

Adam Monahan:

Bob painted thousands of these works on TV in front of live classes and at home. And yet we here at GBH's Antiques Roadshow, itself a PBS show, have never appraised a single one of his works, until now.

But our story doesn't actually start with Colleene at the paintings table, it starts over at collectibles. Laura, starting with you. Can I get your name and affiliation?

Laura Woolley:

Laura Woolley, the Collectors Lab.

James Sup:

James Sub, Coronado Training Company.

Adam Monahan:

One of the jobs our appraisers volunteer for is to review the early submissions that we get online, ahead of the show. Note to listeners, though most treasures seen on Antiques Roadshow walk in the day of our event, we do pre-select a couple items to make sure we have things to tape in the morning. To help us select these early bird items, each appraiser is supposed to just look at the submissions in their own category. Jewelry appraisers, look at jewelry, watch appraisers look at watches, collectibles appraisers look at collectibles. But appraisers don't always follow the rules.

James Sup:

Laura and I, of course, being the nosy people that we are, both found ways to kind of break the system and look at everybody's items early on.

Adam Monahan:

And that's not all. They also like to sneak a look at early bird items for every city on the tour, whether they're assigned to review them or not.

Laura Woolley:

And this year I was not assigned to Anchorage, James was. So James had reviewed all the Anchorage things and we'd already spoken and gone through my city's stuff and he called back within two seconds of us hanging up and said, "Oh my God, there's a Bob Ross painting that came in."

Adam Monahan:

Laura immediately logged onto the system and saw that not only was it a Bob Ross, but it was a quintessentially Alaskan scene, the Northern Lights. Laura wasn't totally shocked by this. She knew that before he was a famous TV painter, Bob Ross was in the Air Force and he was stationed in Alaska. That's where he first saw the iconic mountains and snow that he became famous for painting.

Laura Woolley:

And suddenly it all clicked and I said to James, "Holy bleep. Well, I wonder if there's more."

Adam Monahan:

And where else besides collectibles would a Bob Ross painting go? To the paintings table of course. So they checked the painting submissions.

Laura Woolley:

I saw one and I texted him immediately pictures, and then I kept going through the pages of submissions, and I saw another one, and I texted him pictures. And then I kept going and I found another one. And I find at this point, I just picked up the phone and I went, "Holy crap. There's like five more over here."

Adam Monahan:

Laura and James couldn't believe their luck. Bob Ross paintings have never been on our show and almost never show up on the open market. And yet we might be bringing six to our event in Alaska. Could it be? Or was it too good to be true?

I'm Adam Monahan, a producer with GBH's Antiques Roadshow, and this is Detour. Today, the Bob Ross Appreciation Society.

The Joy of Painting went off the air in 1994, a year before Bob Ross's untimely death. But Bob's legacy is still going strong. The Bob Ross YouTube channel has more than 5 million subscribers, and the most watched video has a whopping 45 million views. There's a Netflix documentary, a board game, a chia pet, all released decades after the show ended. Kids today are still hooked on Bob, like James's kid.

James Sup:

We've had Bob Ross themed birthday parties for her.

Adam Monahan:

Bob Ross themed birthday parties for your daughter?

James Sup:

Oh yeah, yeah. I have pictures somewhere of a bunch of eight year olds wearing Bob Ross wigs. That was awesome.

Adam Monahan:

Laura was basically that 8-year-old

Laura Woolley:

As a precocious 8-year-old. I went out and bought my canvas and paints and I remember the day I was so excited I was going to watch the episode then go out in the porch and do exactly what he just did. Didn't look so great, but at the end of the day, I feel like he's convinced more people on the planet to pick up a paintbrush than any artist probably in the history of the world because he was welcoming and was not a snob about art.

Bob Ross:

Absolutely. Now they, let's put some shadows in there for that.

Adam Monahan:

Bob Ross was a wizard with the paintbrush.

Bob Ross:

Mix it til it's about that color.

James Sup:

It looks like this is a blob of paint that suddenly smears it with a pallet knife and suddenly it's a mountain and you're like, I can't do that. But then you hear him going, "Oh yeah you can. You can do it." And you mess up. "It's okay. It's a happy mistake. Maybe your mountain's different than mine. That's okay. The mountain's going to be what it wants to be."

Bob Ross:

It's easy to do. You can do it. You really can do it. There's no big secret here. We'll show you everything that you need.

Adam Monahan:

The way Bob told it, any of his millions of viewers could become a painter just by picking up a brush.

Bob Ross:

On this canvas, you have total power.

Adam Monahan:

And his paintings generally looked pretty similar. They're all landscapes, usually with some mountains, trees, fluffy clouds, a clear blue lake and maybe, maybe a simple wooden cabin.

It's popular, accessible, not the kind of fine art Colleene Fesko usually appraises. What is your attitude towards Bob Ross art? You don't think it's tacky or anything like that? You think it's good? Well, is it good art?

Colleene Fesko:

I don't think Bob Ross cared if people thought he was a fine art artist, and I don't think we should either. I've read in places that it was just sort of an early type of art therapy, that he was encouraging people and that there were no mistakes. There were things that could be adjusted. There were things that could be transformed.

Adam Monahan:

Yeah.

Colleene Fesko:

And what a better mantra for life than that?

Adam Monahan:

You seem to like Bob Ross paintings is what I'm getting about this?

Colleene Fesko:

Not particularly.

Adam Monahan:

Laura has a different take.

Laura Woolley:

If I had a Bob Ross in my house, it would make me smile every time I saw it, and people would walk in and say, "Is that a Bob Ross?" And I'd say, "Why, yes. Yes, it is."

Adam Monahan:

But for Laura to get her hands on a Bob Ross seems unlikely. There were 403 episodes of the Joy of Painting and Bob Ross painted on 381 of them. The rest were guest artists. For each episode, Bob made three basically identical paintings. One, he used as a reference, one he painted on air, and one he photographed for his instructional books.

Laura Woolley:

So they estimate 1,143 paintings were done for the show, but they're not out in the wild. They're not out there available for people to buy.

Adam Monahan:

And the reason you can't buy them?

James Sup:

Basically every painting he did after Joy of Painting started is owned by Bob Ross Incorporated.

Adam Monahan:

Bob Ross Incorporated helped make Bob Ross the guy into Bob Ross the icon. But his career starts way before that. Back in Alaska in the 1960s and 70s.

Colleene Fesko:

He was in the Air Force in Alaska and by that time, he was already selling and marketing his work. He was selling note cards and paintings. And the pans that they use for gold mining, he would paint on the inside of the base and sell those and they were very, very popular.

Adam Monahan:

In addition to his Air Force job and his budding painting career, Bob was working at a bar that often played a PBS show called The Magic of Painting. That show featured a German-born painter named Bill Alexander. And in each episode, Alexander painted a landscape in oil. Sound familiar?

Bill Alexander:

I will use a happy blue. Just a happy blue on the sky.

Adam Monahan:

When Bob left the Air Force at age 40, he became a traveling instructor with Bill Alexander's Magic Art Supply Company. And it was at one of those classes that he met his future business partner, Annette Kowalski. Annette saw something special in Bob, so they teamed up to start a business of their own, Bob Ross Incorporated. They emulated Bill Alexander's style and format, and before long Bob Ross was on air with the Joy of Painting.

Bob Ross:

Let's just drop in a happy little sky. Just start at the top and work all the way across.

Adam Monahan:

When Bob died in 1995, the company took control of his name, his image, and his paintings. A few were sold by PBS. A few were donated to the Smithsonian Museum. But the vast majority are still held by the company, reportedly stored in the Bob Ross Inc. Offices. So even though there are thousands of paintings, more than a thousand from the show and some estimate 30,000 that Bob did in his lifetime, there are just a handful on the open market.

How many have you seen in the wild?

James Sup:

Probably around 30, give or take.

Adam Monahan:

You've seen 30 records of sales or auctions? Where are you getting your numbers from?

James Sup:

Okay, 30 records of sales between Live Auctioneers and a couple of galleries. And I found records on some online auction sites for literally hundreds of quote/unquote Bob Ross paintings, but a lot of them appear to be just ordinary thrift store paintings where somebody added Ross to the bottom.

Adam Monahan:

As you can imagine, this is a bit of a snag. Bob Ross taught viewers how to paint just like he did. Same brush stroke, same paints, same colors, everything.

Laura Woolley:

And if someone masters his techniques, can they paint something that looks exactly like his? That does concern me.

Adam Monahan:

There are, as you said online, a number of fakes where somebody just added Ross in red paint to the corner, and yet these ones, why do we think these are all real?

James Sup:

On the back, they all have a rubber stamp that says Bob Ross, Alaskan Oil Paintings has a phone number and address and Eielson Air Force Base Alaska. That stamp is a huge help for identifying when and where these were made.

Adam Monahan:

But James and Laura didn't just want the one Bob painting that had been submitted to the collectibles table. They wanted to bring all six Bobs to our event together. I thought the idea sounded cool and asked my colleague, producer, Jill Giles, if she could help make it happen. Jill was equally psyched about this prospect.

Jill Giles:

Well, I mean, I grew up with Bob Ross. I have definitely done the 30 minute painting and I feel like every time I did a Bob Ross painting at the end of it, I was like, "Nailed it."

Adam Monahan:

Now Jill was looking at six Bob Ross paintings all submitted by potential guests and I was able to record her process in real time.

What's your job? What do you have to do when you're calling these people?

Jill Giles:

I'm going to call the folks. I'm going to find out the story. How'd they get it? So we'll see who out of the cache of Bob Ross's that we found, how many people can actually come to the show?

Adam Monahan:

The first person we reached was Denmer, whose painting was a night scene with the Northern Lights and a cabin nestled among the Pines.

Jill Giles:

Hi, is this Denver?

Denmer:

Yes.

Jill Giles:

Hi, this is Jill Giles calling from Antiques Roadshow. Do you have a second?

Denmer:

I do.

Jill Giles:

Great. So a couple of things we-

Adam Monahan:

Jill did her spiel, confirmed that Denmer could in fact come to the Anchorage event and then got to the meat of the matter.

Jill Giles:

But could you tell me a little bit about how you got this painting?

Denmer:

It's a painting that came to my family in the late 1970s. It was a Christmas gift and it hung out on the wall at my parents' house my entire time growing up. And then 40 years later, my parents were downsizing and moving and they offered the painting to me. And I was like, "Absolutely. Yes." And looked at the backside of it and noticed that it said Bob Ross and I was like, "Oh, my gosh."

Adam Monahan:

It was a great story. And even better, Denmer didn't know a lot about the painting or what it was worth. Perfect for us. He was in.

Next we got Alaria.

Jill Giles:

Hi, is this Alaria?

Alaria:

Yes, it is.

Adam Monahan:

Alaria had not one, but two Bob Ross's. She also grew up in Alaska and got the paintings from her parents.

Alaria:

My parents came up in the 70s during the pipeline boom. So my parents are living in this one room cabin with this barrel stove and my mom really, they would frequent the small grocery store. And in the corner of the small grocery store, as it's told to me, was this military clean cut guy selling paintings.

Adam Monahan:

Alaria was in. Next up was Laurel. She bought her paintings at a shed sale in the 1990s and didn't think much of it until she was watching Bob Ross years later.

Laurel:

And I'm like, "You know that painting looks familiar to me. Why does that look so familiar?" Finally, the light goes on. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that looks like the one we have hanging in the room."

Adam Monahan:

Then there was Edna.

Edna:

I'd like to believe it was acquired as a wedding gift to my stepfather and his previous marriage.

Adam Monahan:

Edna was in. And so was Agnes who got hers at a Salvation Army. And that is how we ended up with six Bob Ross paintings in Alaska. After the break, we see the paintings in person and find out if any more Bob Ross's come out of the woodwork.

The day of our event in Anchorage was a cool summer day. We were surrounded by mountains, white clouds, pine trees. It looked a lot like a Bob Ross painting. Appraiser James Sup arrived bright and early.

James Sup:

I did not sleep at all that night. I was so excited. I show up and all I can see is Bob Ross, Bob Ross, Bob Ross, Bob Ross, on every table. This is not a very big room.

Adam Monahan:

All the Bob Ross owners were gathered in the green room where appraisers would meet them, review their items, and decide who they wanted to be filmed for a TV appraisal.

Soundbite from the TV show:

And then I noticed the painting and I said, "Wow, this is real. It's not a poster." And then I noticed Bob Ross's signature. It was so free.

Adam Monahan:

James and Laura worked their way around the whole room quietly making their own judgments about the painting's value.

Soundbite from the TV show:

Okay.

Adam Monahan:

Then we sent all the guests out to set for taping. One with James and these five with Laura.

Laura Woolley:

Okay. So we've put together a little Bob Ross Appreciation Society today. What's interesting is it sounds counterintuitive for me to say that Bob Ross paintings are very rare in the marketplace when we're standing here with five Bob Ross paintings altogether. But what we're discovering there is a bonanza of Bob Ross paintings in Alaska that I'm so excited to find out about because I didn't know. But this is kind of a big deal for me personally.

I watched when I was a kid and he's the reason I picked up a paintbrush for the first time. So people have a very emotional connection. Look, I'm tearing up. People have such an emotional connection to Bob. And you can say whatever you want, whether you like the scenes or you don't, or they're your style, but he's therapy for so many people and people love him. So his paintings sell for a lot of money. Now we have heard tell of wonderful stories-

Adam Monahan:

Then Laura tells them just how much money.

Laura Woolley:

So in the current marketplace, Bob Ross paintings like this would sell in the $15 to $25,000 range.

Denmer:

Oh, my gosh. Wow.

Laura Woolley:

Do we have any prices here? So you inherited.

Edna:

$12.

Laura Woolley:

$12, you win, I think.

Laurel:

Mine was $5.00-

Laura Woolley:

$5.

Laurel:

... at the Quonset hut.

Denmer:

Yeah, I think the woman who gifted it to my parents said she paid $35 each.

Alaria:

My parents told me $20 and I was like, "No way. You didn't pay $20 for Bob Ross." I upped the price. But now if that was a commission price, these were probably $20 each.

Adam Monahan:

Because these guests submitted their items online and they were chosen ahead of time. We taped their appraisals early in the morning. So once the event got going and more guests started flooding in, we were all curious would there be more Bob Ross paintings?

Colleene Fesko:

I thought to myself, because I knew of the Alaska connection, that if five images came through on this, there were going to be many, many, many coming to life.

Adam Monahan:

In fact, our paintings appraiser Colleene was so sure of this, she made a bet with the collectibles appraisers.

Colleene Fesko:

I bet them five large, and by large I mean $5, that they're going to see at least 20 by noon.

Adam Monahan:

So I got a second job that day, checking in with other tables to see how many Bob's we'd seen. Have you seen any Bob Ross's yet?

Soundbite from the TV show:

I have not. Thank God.

Adam Monahan:

No. Bob Ross's there. Have you seen any Bob Ross paintings today?

Soundbite from the TV show:

No, not any.

Adam Monahan:

No Bob Ross paintings there. My favorite Marks, absolute. Sorry to interrupt you.

Mark:

Yes.

Adam Monahan:

Have you seen any Bob Ross paintings today?

Mark:

I have personally not had any come through.

Adam Monahan:

Have you had any Bob Ross paintings come through?

Soundbite from the TV show:

No, I have not had no Bob Ross.

Adam Monahan:

No. No Bob Ross. Okay, good to know. Thank you. Has anybody here seen a Bob Ross painting come to the table on its own?

Soundbite from the TV show:

Not yet.

Adam Monahan:

Oh, that would be a... Not yet. We're almost at the end.

I headed to the paintings table to break the news. All right, Colleene, here's the update.

Colleene Fesko:

Okay.

Adam Monahan:

We are now past noon.

Colleene Fesko:

Yes.

Adam Monahan:

There have been zero Bob Ross's-

Colleene Fesko:

Okay.

Adam Monahan:

... to enter the building,

Colleene Fesko:

I stand corrected and I owe the collectibles table five large, and by large I mean $5.

Adam Monahan:

If they spread it amongst all the collectibles people, they each get like 50 cents

Colleene Fesko:

And I think that's appropriate.

Adam Monahan:

Did Colleene ever give you $5?

Laura Woolley:

I never saw her again.

James Sup:

She ran away.

Laura Woolley:

Don't think we won't remember next season.

Adam Monahan:

Laura and James might not have gotten their $5, but they did get their six Bob Ross's appraised for our guests for up to $150,000 in total, a much more valuable and more meaningful reward.

Detours is a production of GBH in Boston and distributed by PRX. This episode was written and produced by Galen Bebe, edited, mixed, and sound designed by Ian Coss. Our assistant producer is Sarah Horacius. Jocelyn Gonzalez is director of PRX Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the managing producer of podcasts for GBH. And Marcia Bemko is the executive producer of Detours. I'm your host and co-executive producer Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once in a Century Storm by Will Dailey from the album National Throat. Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.