- Will you consider this?

He's done wonderful things for all of us to enjoy from coast to coast.

And his creative self has made Peoria his home.

Coming up.

(upbeat music) When it comes to the creative arts and entertainment, my next guest has pretty much done it all.

Referring to him as only an artist falls short of all that Bob Doucette is.

Welcome, Bob.

- [Bob] Thank you.

- And here you are in the Heartland and you're a Down Mainer.

- I am originally from Maine.

You'll hear me drop my r's.

- [Christine] Every once in a while.

- Every once in a while.

- Right, right.

Okay, so tell us a little bit about yourself.

You're from Maine and you grew up there.

Are you kind of French Canadian Maine?

- I am.

Doucette is the French name.

Although I'll quickly be reminded that it's Canadian French.

I get that a lot.

Yep, I grew up in Maine.

I left as soon as possible.

I moved 3000 miles to California.

- L.A., L.A.

But you started, I think I saw a picture of you in high school.

You were fascinated with dolls growing up.

- Right, I started as a puppeteer when I was younger.

I like all the visual arts, but like sculpting was really something I enjoyed doing.

And also I could perform.

I was very shy and it was a way of like projecting a character into a puppet that allowed me, you know, to get out of myself and to perform.

And, you know, that was comfortable for me.

And so I did that.

Yeah, I had a puppet theater in Maine.

And then I worked for another puppet theater in Rhode Island called the Puppet Workshops.

- Was it summer camp or something?

- And I didn't know that was another thing.

I was in theater for 10 years as a set designer, a costume designer.

And also, I did puppets in a lot of those shows.

But through the summer camp, the director I worked with took me to New York to design an opera there.

And then I moved to L.A. because of him.

And we did several operas there.

And I've done a whole number of things.

You know, I did props for the Houston Opera.

I did, what's his name?

I think it was called "Mass" by Leonard Bernstein.

And I did all the costumes for that.

So I got a little taste of everything.

Oh, "The Threepenny Opera," one of my favorite Kurt Weill shows.

And it was a really good background for me when I went into animation because it taught me a lot about storytelling.

- Right, it's all really very fascinating because when you designed the costumes, did you actually stitch them, or you just gave them the plans and said, "Here's what I want, here's my vision."

Or how did that come about?

- Well, I worked for a lot of very low budget companies.

So it was a little bit of both.

I would rent things.

When we worked in New York, there's great rental houses.

And Los Angeles has great rental houses.

And then you had to put things together.

So it would be my design, but I would be pulling things.

You know, that's kind of the basic theater thing is you try and find as much as you can, - [Christine] And inexpensively as well.

- Right.

And then you put your touch on those things and pull them together with your taste basically.

- Well, pretty incredible.

And you just started out...

Okay, what did I read too?

Your dad always wanted to be an artist.

He worked on the railroad.

- Yes, my dad was fantastic.

He was my inspiration.

When we were little kids, he wanted to teach all of us how to draw.

So we would be out in the summer on the driveway with big pieces of chalk 'cause the railroad had those chalks to mark the cars.

He'd bring 'em home.

And he would draw the beautiful girl on the street.

And we'd all go "Where are her hands?

"Where are her feet?"

"I'm not done yet."

(laughs) So, but he was very inspiring.

He made sure that we all had lessons if we wanted them.

We had drawing.

And I started painting at age eight because of them.

They were very, very supportive.

- And encouraging.

How many kids in the family?

- Five.

- All right, and you are?

- The youngest.

- The youngest, okay.

Babies are the best.

Is everybody else, is anybody else talented, as talented as you or interested as you are?

- At one point, they all could draw.

They were all pretty good.

One by one, they kind of dropped off and stopped doing it.

My next youngest brother is, can draw and paint.

He still draws and paints.

Not for a living, but he does do it.

And he's very good at it actually.

- And you do it for a living now, really?

- [Bob] I do, yeah.

- How many hours a day?

- I try to work a full week because first of all, it's my job.

And if I don't do it, I don't make money.

So that's what I'm thinking all the time.

- [Christine] It's your discipline, right?

- It's my discipline but it's also my passion.

And I really do love being in the studio.

I like to be there at least once a day.

So even on the weekend, I will drop in, you know, even if it's just..

Sometimes you just have to look at what you're doing and tidy up and, you know, it'll keep you in that mode 'cause the more you're in it, the better you are at it.

- Do you sketch too or just mostly paint?

- I do sketch, but I tend to sketch toward something.

Like, you know, when I'm designing something or designing a painting, I'll do sketches towards it.

Finished drawings though is another discipline that it's very time-consuming.

It almost takes more time than painting because it's very accurate.

You have to be very skilled at that so I don't spend a lot of time doing that.

- And you like acrylics?

- I do.

- Do you do any oils?

- I do do oils also.

I learned when I was very young and I started with oil paints.

My mother said, "No, we're too messy to use oil paints.

And so I discovered acrylics and I started using them then.

But when I went to college, we did figure painting with oils.

And the only problem is they're just not fast enough.

They take too long to dry.

- To dry, they do.

- And traditionally, it would take six months for them to dry before you could varnish them.

And for doing shows and making money, not very, not very economic.

So I started just doing acrylics for the speed.

But now I do oils just for the pleasure.

I really love, it's a different feeling.

But I've been doing acrylic so long, it's kinda my specialty.

- It's your thing.

And you kind of like cut the paint in and dabble it and you do a little of everything with it.

Where do you get your inspiration?

- Well, I think a lot of my past and specifically my childhood is the real inspiration for what I do.

The puppets, the cartoons, all those things, you'll see most of my work has a kind of cartoony feeling to it.

And I actually studied illustration and animation when I was in college.

But I never got into the discipline of illustration.

I've always had the problem with like being told what to do.

Not really good at that.

- Well, you know what.

And when you're in school, that's what you have to do.

Sit still, keep your hands crossed, focus your attention, all that stuff.

So you get to use your right brain and do what you wanna do.

- Yep, I think that's why my big goal was always someday I'm gonna be a painter and just sell my paintings in galleries.

Although nowadays, you can sell them online.

So it's very easy.

But I was very practical for years.

And I think, you know, it led me down another creative path that I don't regret going that way either.

- And that was animation?

- Animation.

- Explain that because you've done some things for PBS.

- Yes, I have.

I worked in animation for 23 years.

I didn't wanna really do it at first 'cause it was a very commercial field and I like kinda more artsy theater stuff.

But I had a lot of friends at school who persuaded me to try it.

And I got in there and I realized like you could move around, you know what I mean, try.

I learned character design.

I learned background painting.

I learned all these different disciplines.

And then I was like, I need to move up because I need to use all those skills.

So I became a producer, a creative producer, which is kind of like the big director who has other directors under them.

And I did, my first show was a funny comedy called "Road Rovers."

We only did 13 episodes, but the next one was this huge 52 episodes and it took us three years and a nervous breakdown practically.

(both laugh) - But you digress.

- I digress, yes.

So yeah, so what I loved was getting to a point where I had creative input.

And the first half of my career was at Warner Brothers.

You know, I worked on "Animaniacs," "Tiny Toons," all the kind of traditional comedy Warner Brothers stuff.

My second half, I worked at an international studio called Mike Young Productions.

And our bosses were from Wales.

So we worked with a lot of different countries.

I had a production I did with Australia.

I worked with India; I worked with China.

- [Christine] Did you go all those places too?

- I went to India.

I went to Taiwan twice.

I went to Japan, Korea.

And it was fascinating.

And I like food so it was a good... (laughs) - International flavor flair, right?

- Yeah, it was good for me.

But that company did a lot of PBS shows.

And PBS shows were often, you know, on a budget.

So you do international productions so that you can have co-producers, people who will put a little money into it.

So they have a piece of it and you have a piece of it.

And we were really good at that.

And I started with "Clifford's Puppy Days."

And I created a show called "Dive Olly Dive" which was a little submarine show.

It's funny 'cause now the little kids who've seen these shows grow up and they're like, "You did that?"

(laughs) - Well, it's kind of fun 'cause you you've left a mark on a lot of different lives.

What's been the most fun out of all of those, all of those experiences, yeah?

- I really loved, I know this is gonna sound off the mark.

I loved two things.

Working with artists.

I like working with visual artists, but also I love working with actors.

And I really enjoyed the voice acting stuff.

And I did a little voice acting myself, but I also did some voice directing.

And getting in the booth and working with actors can be, as you probably know, wonderful.

And to me, it was like playing an orchestra.

We've got the deep bass over here.

We've got the soprano over here, the tenor.

You know, you wanna balance it so it has variety and there's some kind of beautiful music to working.

And I directed for two shows the children in the show.

I got to direct their voices.

And it was fun.

- I bet that was fun.

- Yeah, they were fantastic because, you know, they don't know who I am so they treat me like, you know, like anyone else.

- [Christine] One of the kids.

- Yeah, so it was very entertaining, I love the sound of real children's voices playing children.

It's a really great sound.

- It is.

Well you know, their enthusiasm and their passion just comes out in their expressions.

I love it too.

I want everybody to be four years old (Bob laughs) because they're the best.

Now at one point out in L.A. when you were kind of giving up the animation and all that stuff and you were just strictly, you had made a decision that you were going to paint, and then you had a storefront and you painted in the storefront or something?

- Oh no, I know what you're thinking.

I always call it the monkey in the window sort of phenomena.

Some galleries like to do this thing where if you have an opening event that they get the artist to sit in the front so they can be seen through the window.

and it always draws people's attention.

And I'm like: Whatever brings in people, I'm okay with.

But I do feel like a monkey in the window.

But I realize also it took away my shyness because I'm intimidated by new people.

But if I'm painting something I'm comfortable doing and then someone's interested in that, well then I can talk all day.

- Well, do you get to the point where you've made a mistake or you don't like it and you cast that one aside and you start over again?

Or are you pretty much: This is how this is going to be.

This is how this is gonna turn out.

- I think when you're learning, you have to throw away a lot of stuff.

I think the biggest mistake, the biggest mistake is to go with something you're not happy with.

And I've learned that more and more.

Sometimes people ask you to do things or commissions that are not your thing.

- They're not you.

- So you have to find a way in and you have to find, you know, like: What am I passionate about that I can make this happen?

- [Christine] And how do you do that?

- Well, I am clever that way in that I try and picture myself in it, you know, like try and find...

I had one once, this dad had contacted me and he wanted to do a painting of his son.

And already, I'm like: Okay, do a kid, do a caricature.

I can do that, that's great.

And then it turned into, "And I want them to be on Key West Beach.

"And I want them to have, you know, army men "coming up the beach.

"And I want him in the tank and I want planes."

And I was like: Wait, stop, slow down.

And so I just went: "Okay, I don't know if you want me for this."

And then I thought: Wait a minute, I know what I can do.

I said, "Do you mind if I do a toy tank?"

'Cause I love toys.

And I put him in a toy tank.

And then once I started it and I got the kid's face, which he was just adorable so I enjoyed that.

Then I was like: I'll do anything.

And I ended up adding army men and things like that.

- [Christine] Did you like it?

- I enjoyed it, but it was not out of... Like it wouldn't be something I'd put in my portfolio because it just doesn't represent the kind of images that I would show.

- Right, right.

Well, that's the crazy thing.

So you have these thoughts in your head and a lot of 'em are caricatures.

- And in Peoria at Untamed Chef, you have a whole wall of really fun things.

- Yeah, I love doing caricatures.

Unfortunately, they don't really sell that well.

People like to look at them, but they don't wanna put them on their walls.

You know, I always think if I could get into like a Hollywood museum or something like that, that would be the place for them.

But it's a little passion of mine.

When I was growing up, I loved "Mad Magazine," Mort Drucker.

And I also loved Al Hirschfeld who did all the Broadway drawings for the newspaper.

So when I was working... Now this is gonna sound crazy 'cause when I was a director, it's a very full-time job.

But I don't like being left waiting for something.

And I was often waiting, especially when you work with another country.

When is India gonna get me my stuff?

So I would sit on my computer and I'd start painting on Photoshop.

And like time would go by and I suddenly would have a full caricature.

And by the end of like a year, I had like 100 caricatures I had done.

(both laugh) - You waited that long?

- Yes, lots of waiting.

I don't like to be wasteful.

- I don't blame you; I don't blame you.

Well, now you still have some shows in galleries.

Correct?

And where are those?

- Well, I have a variety of different places.

My two biggest ones right now are I regularly do solo shows in California at the Lewis Galleries.

And then I regularly do a show here at Exhibit A Gallery with Barb Milaccio.

Those are my anchors.

And then I have a bunch of shows through the year, different people who put me in group shows.

So there is one in Long Beach called the Dark Art Emporium 'cause I do like to do a little Halloween and creepy stuff sometimes.

And they're fantastic and I've been there.

I happen to be in a gallery in Portugal called the Penumbra gallery.

And she does group shows, so I'm in her shows once a year.

I'm in a gallery in Scotland.

- And do you choose what you want to go in those shows?

Or do they give you an idea of what theme?

- It's interesting.

The group shows always have themes.

And like I say, if you can get a theme that works with you, then it's like perfect.

And if they know you, they will work with you.

They can go back and forth on stuff.

I did have one time I wanted to be in this gallery in New York so bad.

And they asked me if I would do a show.

And I was like: Yes, yes, yes.

And then like: What is it?

"It's the William Shatner Show."

- [Christine] Oh my.

- And I was like: I don't know if I can get into that.

(both laugh) And I painted four paintings just to get one that I was happy with.

- [Christine] Star Trek kind of?

- Well no, I wasn't allowed to do Star Trek because they had a list.

And I was chosen to do William Shatner, the singer.

(laughs) - Oh my.

- Right.

So I worked so hard on this thing.

And I finally finished and I went: Oh my God, I got a likeness.

I'm going with that.

I usually get them digitized and I send it right out to the gallery, you know, in case there's a problem.

And they were like, "Love it."

And they made it the poster, which was hilarious because I was not meant to be in that show.

- You kind of scooched in there.

- Yeah.

- Well now, a lot of people don't know why you ended up settling in Peoria.

And we're very happy because on Moss Avenue, it's becoming Artist's Row.

(Bob laughs) And you were, I believe, the first one.

- Yeah, yeah, that's right.

I actually think I was the first one.

Well, it came down to Los Angeles is expensive, and it's hot, and the traffic is terrible, and it's very crowded there.

- Just add an extra lane.

That'll handle the traffic.

- Yeah, exactly, just knock down a hill.

But you know, and the fires.

Every year, the fires were getting worse.

We would have ash coming down in our backyard like snow.

And I grew up with snow.

I grew up in Maine.

We had snow for nine months.

- And you had nor'easters that came through, right.

- So I have no problem with four seasons.

I love the four seasons.

And I also don't mind moving.

I find that people are afraid to leave certain areas they're comfortable with.

But I find that it keeps you young.

Because when you have to like suddenly memorize new streets and how do you get here and how do you get there, it makes life interesting.

And it keeps you alert and interested.

So when we were looking all over for a place, we wanted a historical home.

And we wanted something that we could just buy outright.

And so I wanted lower price living and I wanted an artistic community.

And so I put it out on Facebook and said, "What do you think, guys?"

And I have friends from all over that I don't even know half of.

And Steve Spain from Peoria said, "Try Peoria."

And I said, "I know you're joking "but I am gonna try Peoria."

And then I was shocked because I went onto Zillow and I found the real estate was phenomenal.

I mean beautiful, affordable, but also beautiful historical homes.

You couldn't afford these houses in California.

You just couldn't afford them.

And I was like: This is what I want.

And we found the one that had the attic refinished, which was a perfect studio for me.

So I love that.

Now I have to say the most important part about Peoria, and I never would have come here if it hadn't been for this, it's the people.

Because when we came here, every person we liked.

Every person we met, we liked.

And I was like: Okay, that's very interesting.

Let's keep going.

Because one of our goals was: I don't wanna grow old and not have connections and not have friends that I care about and not have neighbors that I know.

Because you can do that in California where people don't know you, period.

- Yeah, they live next door and you have no idea.

- You never, never go in their house.

People don't hang out.

They always wanna meet you at a restaurant.

So here, I was not disappointed.

I think that the Midwest... - [Christine] Midwestern values.

- Yes, my husband lived in Michigan for years in Ann Arbor.

So I knew what the people were like there.

And I loved that lifestyle.

And I have not been sorry.

I think Moss Avenue was one of the greatest choices I could have made because we have such a beautiful neighborhood.

And I don't just mean the looks of the houses, but the people are fantastic.

And I know you know that 'cause you're one of them.

- I have to agree.

Been there for a long time.

Now you have sold your paintings all around the world.

Your biggest challenge is - [Bob] Shipping.

(both laugh) - [Christine] That was what I was gonna say, yes.

- Absolutely.

- So what have you found to make that happen if anybody wants to ship one of your lovely paintings to a friend somewhere?

- That's a very timely question.

(both laugh) So recently, I got into a very special show.

And it's the Surreal Salon.

And it's done in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

And I've heard about it for it's the 14th year.

It's like very well-known for people who are into the pop surrealism art movement.

And I was so excited I got in the show.

And then when I realized the piece that they picked was 58 inches by 45 inches with a frame on it.

And I went: Oh, they told me on a Saturday, last Saturday, that it had to be there by the 25th.

So I had a little mental breakdown because I don't like being out of control.

But the greatest thing is the friends I have here.

I just asked my friends, and keep asking.

My friend, Ben Mackey, who's a fantastic person said, "Hey, don't worry about it, I have a friend."

And he had this friend, Caesar, who worked with FedEx.

And they do the white glove deliveries.

And I didn't know it existed.

- I didn't either until you mentioned it the other day.

- And so fantastic.

And yeah; anyone want his number, I'll give it to you.

He's fantastic.

He helped me out.

And then also, there's a company called Uline out of Wisconsin that makes art crates.

And they had one that was exactly the size I needed.

So I ordered that and had that delivered here.

Now normally, we're shipping stuff out all the time.

Every week, I have to send something to California.

I had to send something to Spain once.

And that was like new for me.

'Cause I'm like: I don't know.

- [Christine] What's that zip code?

(both laugh) - How does that work?

Luckily, the collectors that I've been working with or the galleries that I'm working with have been super helpful with that.

Sometimes when you're doing a personal sale, like the one to Spain was just for me, I was like: Okay, I don't know anything about your country so we need to - I need some help here - figure this out.

But you know, they have the VAT taxes.

And some places will hold them in Customs forever.

Yeah, it's really bad.

Some people have lost artwork in Customs.

- Wow, look at all you've learned.

We have a couple minutes left.

So out of all of the things that you've done, what is it that you haven't done that you'd still like to do?

- Ooh, that's interesting.

- Bucket list.

- My bucket list is I would like to put on a show.

And I know that sounds crazy, but, you know, the other night when we went to see "A Christmas Carol" at the Scottish Rite... That is my favorite story.

I love Dickens.

And we were watching that and I said, "If we could design this together, "this would be so much fun."

You know, like if they wanted to change it up, I'm telling them now I'm available.

I would love to.

- For costuming or you'd make it modern day?

- No what I would love to do is I would like to direct and write my own script so that I could make the ghosts puppets.

And I could have Tom do the costumes because he's fantastic at that, and do the set design.

Because it's just like that's a dream of mine from way back when.

- Wait, really quickly, you wrote some music or something?

- I did.

- What was that?

- I love music.

I'm not like a popular music kind of person, but I can write musical kind of music.

And when I was at Warner Brothers, I was working on this show and my director says, "I need a song by Monday.

"Go home and write a song."

And it was about Babs Bunny was supposed to go into a museum, an art museum, and get hit over the head by a statue and then dream about being inside of all the paintings.

And I had that in my head.

And I woke up in the morning and it was half the song had written itself.

- [Christine] Really?

- Yeah, I was singing it in the shower.

I'm going: I've gotta remember this until I get to work.

(both laugh) - Well now, you have recording devices probably that you could use.

Well, I would like to thank you.

We need to find out so much more about you and Tom.

And thanks so much for being here, Bob.

- Well, thanks for having me.

- You're delightful.

And I hope that you'll look him up.

So you have a website: bobdoucette.com.

Yeah, that's D-O-U-C-E-T-T-E. Yeah, okay.

Well, thank you for being with us.

Hope you learned a lot.

And hope you look up his art because it really is beautiful.

Thanks for joining us.

Stay safe and healthy.

(upbeat music)