Lindy Cook Severns

Big Bend artist, Lindy Cook Severns, is a seventh-generation Texan and painter of landscapes steeped in color and imbued with her passion for nature.

"While I've painted professionally most all my adult life, there's nothing like not having a day job. In 2024, infected with Middle-Age Crazy, Jim & I quit our jobs flying a corporate jet (yes, together!). We sold the country club estate we'd lovingly designed, landscaped and occupied for nearly three decades. Been there. Loved it. Done with that life. We moved into a big RV and meant to travel the continent (on wheels, this time), but the wild country of Far West Texas kept calling us home."

Old Spanish Trail Studio, her crazy artist space, is tucked away in the Davis Mountains near historic Fort Davis and what she calls "Infamous Marfa". She lives in her fifth-wheel on a working high country ranch. Two rescued terriers and an African Grey parrot share the remotely beautiful world with her. Across from her rustic studio is Old Spanish Trail Gallery, a high-end southwestern art gallery where she is the Artist-In-Residence and her husband, Jim, acts as Chief-of-Hanging. (Jim claims he's done more hanging than Judge Roy Bean.) "We're the ones who ran away to join the Circus, and we've never looked back."

Their unconventional lifestyle has given them the time to concentrate on creating and marketing art outside of the normal channels. Jim calls her an "Outlaw Pastelist" because her style is unique and largely self taught through wild experimenting. "I stay true to self, never allowing rules, expectations or show requirements to enter my studio with me." That artistic freedom has yielded successes she never dreamed of, including being honored as the 2020 Distinguished Alumni for the College of Arts and Sciences of Texas Tech University. She is also featured in their Innovation Never Ends video series. "Flying solo can be scary, but it's worked for me!"