Thirty Days, Thirty Minutes, Thirty Paintings: Happy Accidents

Artist Scot Kaplan Paints Live Along with a Bob Ross Joy of Painting TV Episode
October 7, 2006 – 8:30 – 9:00 p.m.
Followed by Opening Night Reception Until 10:00 p.m.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – On October 7th, Mahan Gallery will be transformed into the set of “America’s Favorite Television” art show The Joy of Painting, the iconic PBS television series from the 1980s and ‘90s.   Artist Scot Kaplan will create a landscape from the repertoire of the program’s late TV host Bob Ross, by painting live along with an episode of the show.

The live performance will allow the audience to personally experience how Kaplan produced his project “Thirty Days, Thirty Minutes, Thirty Paintings” which will grace the gallery walls throughout the month of October.  The impetus for the series was based on Bob Ross’ invitation at the start of each show to “paint along with us,” and for this project Kaplan did just that. Over the span of one month, Kaplan produced one painting per day by doggedly painting along with a pre-recorded episode of The Joy of Painting.  He constructed his own set identical to the on-air background, then he recorded each artistic session and edited it in a manner that further paralleled the television show format.
As part of this avant-garde, multimedia exhibit at Mahan Gallery, Kaplan’s recorded “performances” will play on monitors mounted next to a series of the paintings.  The works will be sold as an entire experiential package including the painting, and the original Kaplan DVD (never to be reproduced).

Kaplan, an art professor at Ohio State University, who considers himself an interactive sculptor rather than a painter, started as an experimental project to try his hand at keeping pace with Ross’ rapid creation of “happy little trees,” free clouds and mighty mountains”.  What is revealed through the work however is the many layers of complexity that exist in art and Kaplan’s own acquired appreciation for Ross.