"The committee which evaluated the award submissions rejected most applicants. At that time, the judges rarely screened more than the first ten minutes of a program."

TV director Carrol Ellerbe, Bill, and station manager of KOCE, Don Gerdts. Award presented in June, 1980.

In 1979 Bill filmed his first series with Carrol Ellerbe. Bill was not only on television, one of the top professionals in the industry was his director. This was also the first series with which KOCE issued a companion guide. In it were pictures of all the paintings from the series with step-by-step instructions.

When the series ended Don and Carrol submitted one of the programs to the Los Angeles Academy for Television Arts and Sciences. This organization was responsible for recognizing excellence in television. They were the ones who presented the Emmy award.

The committee which evaluated the award submissions rejected most applicants. At that time, the judges rarely screened more than the first ten minutes of a program. They then decided to nominate or reject the program. The competition was stiff.

When the judges looked at Bill’s tape for the required ten minutes, they were curious. Would Bill be able to finish the entire painting in thirty minutes?

They fast forwarded the tape to the end of the show. The painting was Autumn Scene. After the committee viewed it, they became even more curious wondering how Bill finished the painting in such a short time.

They rewound the tape to the beginning and watched the entire show! The judges gave the show a unanimous nomination. Another committee affirmed the nomination and awarded the Emmy. No other television artist has ever won the award. Bill always wondered if any of the judges took up painting themselves.

The television series and the winning of the award changed Bill’s and Margarete’s lives. Just a few short years before, Bill was a struggling artist trying to earn a few happy bucks from his art and teaching students. Now he was a celebrity and a winner of one of the most prestigious awards in television.

Bill thought about how far he had come from the immigrant with a box of rusty nails who sailed into Halifax harbor in 1952. He thought about the years he and Margarete spent wandering around the United States and Canada. He thought about his hundreds of painting demonstrations in department stores and shopping malls. He thought about the times when he almost gave up painting because their life was so difficult. Now, in just a few short years, he was teaching millions of people how to paint – all through the magic of television.