J.J. Weinberg, a Bob Ross impersonator, is a happy little thing as he paints a verbal picture of his efforts to support public broadcasting.
Sunday afternoon, Weinberg, of Valparaiso, shared a birthday card for the late painter renowned for his Afro hairstyle and painting “happy little trees” on his landscapes.
Weinberg is planning a second Million Bob Ross march in Washington, D.C., even though last year’s inaugural event fell far short of the million mark.
Sunday, he greeted supporters at Fluid Coffee Bar in downtown Valparaiso, sharing his artwork and encouraging visitors to play the Joy of Ponging video game he created, bouncing Ross’s head across the screen and picking up paint splotches to earn points.
Ben Garcia and his son, Hudson, played the video game. “It’s like playing Pong. It’s fun,” Garcia said. “Kids these days are playing retro games” like pixelated 8-bit Nintendo games, so the Joy of Ponging game has an appeal for them, he said.
Garcia is a Bob Ross fan. “I watched, growing up in the ‘80s,” he said. “He’s an American icon.”
“I don’t have the patience for painting,” Garcia said, but enjoyed watching Ross paint landscapes for the Joy of Painting show filmed at the Muncie PBS studio and aired nationally.
Clinton Worthington, of LaPorte, counts himself as a close friend of Weinberg, who treated him to an event with Steve Ross, son of the famous painter. Worthington, a fellow artist, enjoyed painting with Steve Ross.
“We traveled all the way out there and brought our stuff,” Worthington said, and enjoyed the experience. “We were getting pretty tight with all the guys,” having to decline an offer for drinks afterward to travel back to Northwest Indiana.
Like Ross, Worthington enjoys live painting. He joined a band called The Energy Commission, doing live paintings onstage while the other band members performed their music. They played familiar Chicago venues like House of Blues, Cubby Bear Lounge and others.
“I drill water wells as my job, but I do so many things through my art,” Worthington said.
Weinberg and Worthington get together on weekends to challenge each other intellectually, Worthington said. Weinberg has encouraged his friend to expand his creative horizons.
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Weinberg’s own horizons are wide.
His Bob Ross fandom began in earnest with a portrait of a man wearing a red baseball cap that says, “Make America Paint Again.”
At a Times Square event in New York City, Weinberg got a “happy little tree” tattoo on his arm in two sessions a few minutes apart. A police officer told them they couldn’t get a tattoo on the street in Times Square, so they shifted to a spot a short distance away and finished the tattoo.
Weinberg was happy to get his photo in The New York Times as one of the Bobs in support of restoring federal funding for public broadcasting.
In Chicago last year, Weinberg created a large Bob Ross Afro wig with chicken wire and spray foam to place on one of the lions in front of the Art Institute of Chicago. Later, he learned the title of that lion sculpture was “In an Attitude of Defiance.”
The wig didn’t stay on the lion for long. A security guard removed it. Weinberg asked for it back, but the guard said no, that it now belongs to the Art Institute’s archives.
Weinberg encouraged visitors on Sunday to sign a canvas shield in support of Ross and public broadcasting. The shield is covered with signatures.
Weinberg showed a costume he created. “This is a character that I’ve created. It’s Bob Ross meets the Punisher trying to save public media,” Weinberg said. He calls it The Varnisher. “He needs a shield, a riot shield,” hence the canvas shield.
“I say the canvas is mightier than the shield,” like the pen is mightier than the sword, he said.
“It’s the shield that protects imagination, protects public television,” Weinberg said.
“It’s like a lattice of imagination. Everyone who has signed it has put their intention on it.”
At 4:30 p.m. Sept. 26, Weinberg and others in Bob Ross-style Afros plan to meet in front of the Art Institute and “just kind of do a little march up Michigan Ave.”
On Oct. 1, he’s returning to Muncie for “another little Bob Mob,” walking from Ball State University about 1.5 miles to the studio where the Joy of Painting episodes were filmed. “We walked it last year. We had Big Bird with me last year and a bunch of Bobs,” he said.
Among Weinberg’s creations is a “Straight Outta Muncie” hat that began as an illustration.
A giant birthday card for Bob Ross was also being signed. That birthday is Oct. 29, when the Million Bob March, give or take a few Bobs, is returning to Washington, D.C. The shield’s signatures are one way of showing support for public broadcasting. Weinberg’s full of ideas to help people join in spirit, if not in person.
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“That’s the goal this year, is to get some interactivity for people who can’t make it to D.C.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.