There are 403 episodes of Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting and I had to choose one—only one—to feature in the new exhibit The Bob Ross Experience. The landscape painter, Bob Ross, entranced public television viewers of the 1980s with his soothing voice, positive catchphrases, and idyllic landscapes. In 2019, Taylor Studios began work on The Bob Ross Experience, a recreation of the television studio where Bob Ross filmed The Joy of Painting, within the actual historic house where the show was filmed.

How to choose? Should I pick an almighty mountain scene, a sunset seascape, or a forest of happy little trees? Should I pick the episode that had the most views on YouTube? Should I pick my own personal favorite? Luckily, I had a tool to help me make this tough choice: a central theme.

What Is a Central Theme?

At Taylor Studios, we love to talk about central themes. We think they’re so important that they are one of the very first things we discuss with our clients. The word “theme” gets tossed around in many different contexts, so I’ll be a little more specific. In this case, a central theme is the big idea of the exhibit. It’s not just a topic—like outer space or beluga whales—it’s a complete, cohesive sentence that connects your most important resources to universal concepts that matter to visitors. The central theme guides the entire exhibit design and makes the final exhibition make sense and feel unified.

At its core, the central theme is a tool. It helps the design team decide which stories, experiences, and artifacts to include in the exhibition and which to leave out.

The central theme for The Bob Ross Experience is…

By returning to the central theme, I transformed my decision from “which episode should be featured in the exhibit?” to “which episode would best reframe how people think about their mistakes, abilities, and self-expression?” All of a sudden, the answer was easy: episode 13, season 11, “Happy Accident.”

The Chosen Episode

Typically, Bob begins his TV show with a blank canvas, but in this episode he starts with a partially-painted forest scene. He explains that if your painting isn’t turning out how you envisioned it, you don’t have to start from scratch. Bob takes his palette knife and quickly scrapes off layers of paint, leaving behind a background of blurred yellows, oranges, and browns. For the rest of the episode, he continues painting right on top of that faded color, creating a final piece with a deep, complex background that is far more intriguing than it would have been without his initial “mistake.” No other episode does a better job of reframing mistakes than “Happy Accident.”

The Backbone of The Bob Ross Experience

The impact of the central theme on The Bob Ross Experience extends far beyond this one example.

The exhibit includes three rooms: the recreated television studio, a recreation of a 1980s living room, and an entryway to welcome visitors and introduce them to the exhibit. Both recreated rooms are filled with discoverable objects.

Antiques, books, and games crowd a tall bookshelf in the living room, while a vintage can of Coke sits atop a coaster that is actually a graphic.

The TV studio has canvases leaning against the wall and graphics in even more unexpected places, like one adhered to the ceiling.

With so many options for including objects and content, the exhibit design could have easily deteriorated into an everything about Bob free-for-all. We could have tried to tell Bob’s entire life story. We could have done a deep-dive into landscape painting techniques. But, by following our central theme, we chose to limit our story to Bob’s experiences filming The Joy of Painting in Muncie, Indiana and the relationships he formed with the television crew, the Muncie community overall, and his viewers at home. Through limiting the story of the exhibit, we sharpened and intensified it. When visitors leave The Bob Ross Experience, their heads won’t be muddled with disparate facts. They will carry some version of the central theme with them in their minds and in their hearts.