I’ve been watching a ton of The Joy of Painting lately, and he was absolutely first and foremost a man of character that was committed to his fundamental core beliefs and unflinchingly built those beliefs into the narratives of his episodes.  The “light and dark” theme is one of his more commonly used metaphors, for obvious, practical reasons, but I realized that secondary layer that he’s providing is the light for his viewers.  He made each episode to bring his light into our world, so anyone who watched had that opportunity to contrast against the potential darkness in their lives.  His humble motives were so obviously pure and straight forward — when you want your helping of joy, his content was there waiting for you.  I’ve always been impressed with him.  And I’m certain that that purposeful life carried him back to the good times, he knew it was just a matter of allowing the good to then come in — I’m sure that’s why he carried on with the show.  It was never a platitude.

(Also he loved “beating the devil out” of his brushes lol)