Many artists, including my mother, insist they can't paint until their lives are in order and they feel inspired. But order and inspiration of that sort is a luxury a professional artist can't afford. As it is, I must regularly claim time for creating — time that could otherwise be spent hiking with my husband, lunching with friends, cleaning house, grooming the dog, learning Turkish. (Okay. So I don't obsess over a dusty house nor do I really plan to tour Turkey. But painting takes time that could, conceiveably, be spent on those tasks!) Having already stolen time from a full day, I'm not inclined to waste it seeking moments of grand inspiration. So, I follow a five-minutes to inspiration rule.

That doesn't mean I never feel inspired.

When I'm painting plein air, a certain amount of choice and planning has already occurred.  Whether on foot or by truck, I travel to a preselected locale; I find a spot that will accommodate me and my Soltek easel; I then turn 360 degrees to familiarize myself with my surroundings. That done, I take five minutes to select a subject then distill a composition from that landscape. (If the landscape hadn't somehow summoned me back, I wouldn't be there.) I'm not picky. I believe art is a process, I enjoy being outdoors surrounded by nature, and I derive the same satisfaction from painting a lichen-covered rock as I do from painting a glacial lake beneath snow-capped Rockies. Sometimes, the inspiring moment is a quiet one. If I'm lucky, a potential focal point jumps out and grabs me. Regardless, I'm there, so I find something to paint. In five minutes or less.

If I'm starting a new painting in the studio, I've usually already lost a little sleep mulling over an idea, an image that whispers my name. Maybe I want to document a recent day trip to a familiar but yet-unpainted landmark. Sometimes, I see familiar territory from a different angle or under a different sky. I carry my Canon digital Elph everywhere I go — getting groceries, walking the dog — so when I see something that intrigues me, I photograph it. Because photo references can get out of hand, I try to immediately download all angles of that small inspiration into a location-specific, dated folder in my laptop. Months later, when I see a thunderstorm building in the distance and it triggers an artistic memory of Spanish daggers lining Highway 505 after a late afternoon storm, I can delve into my files, then print out half a dozen of those dagger shots. Photos in hand, I attack the studio with a plan, if not a composition.  Five minutes in the studio, and I'm painting.

I keep a few "paint-me" photos printed out and filed in the studio for those inevitable days when the world sucks and nothing inspirational festers in the back of my mind, where nothing is waiting to be painted. On such days, I walk into the studio, pull a random photo from the Sucky Day folder and go to work. I don't let myself think too much. The five minute rule still applies. And fifteen minutes into painting, the world never seems so bad.

Once in a great while, I stumble upon a grand moment of inspiration. You can't plan it. It's a magnificence, a breath of life which fills the lungs and drives the artist to paint, regardless. Never mind comfort. Forget companionship. Who cares whether life is orderly or not, whether another painting is in progress or not. True inspiration demands immediate action. 

I acted upon such inspiration two weeks ago. All afternoon (while Jim watched football playoffs) I'd been in the studio, unpacking a new set of Terry Ludwig dark pastels, plus, replenishing my favorite Rembrandt, Schmincke and Sennilier sticks. Getting all orderly for the new year. Thinking of the new year, I felt suddenly fat. I had the truck: Other than having partaken of too much holiday eating, I don't know what made me start walking, walking up a mountain I rarely hike, and in a direction I rarely go.
 
Here in the mountains, our sun vanishes early, bringing a dramatic drop in temperature. Heading eastward, I walked fast to ward off the chill, and in the fading light, my breath made clouds that I struggled to catch. I kicked up a chipped arrowhead, studied the ground for the missing piece.  A hawk, giving chase to unseen prey cried out as he swooped overhead. As pilots encountering flying objects are prone to do, I looked up to follow the hawk's flight. What I saw stole my breath.
The familiar eastern sky was on fire with reflected light. The sky's fire melted down Blue Mountain, coated Point of Rocks, tickled toward the mountains near the Bloys encampment. That's all I could think: the sky is on fire, and the blue mountains are swimming in it.
I snapped a few shots, hiked a few steps higher to snap a few more. But already, the fire was dissolving into familiar pastel shades of sunset.

Oil painting, I thought, having not done an oil in almost a year, but knowing, intuitively, that oil this one should be. I raced back to the studio. Before darkness claimed the peaks to the east, I'd unwrapped a linen canvas that I'd been saving for who knows what, clamped it to my easel and whipped out my wooden box of oil paints so they'd be ready for my entrance the next morning. I drove home, called a time-out from TV football to announce I needed to start an oil painting. Because, I explained, still breathless, I'd serendipitously taken a spontaneous hike in the time when the sky catches fire.

I delivered the painting to Kiowa Gallery for framing last week. I then called museum curator Mary Bones to beg a change in my Trappings of Texas entries. Everyone agreed, this oil was right for that show. This piece is inspired.
 
Like a whispered breath, the spirit of creation is fragile, fleeting. Alive. I believe we artists are gifted with inspiration, but all people are gifted with the breath of life. Magnificent inspiration is a gift we shouldn't take lightly.

One day, the sky over the mountains I love best held fire for one fleeting moment. In that time, I was there. A hawk flew. And so, I looked up. Sharing that moment, that joy is both my gift and my duty. Hope you enjoy it.


IN THE TIME WHEN THE SKY CATCHES FIRE  copyright Lindy C Severns 2008
           24"x36" oil on archival Russian linen    $3900 framed

The original will debut as an entry in the invitational Trappings of Texas 2008
at the Museum of the Big Bend, Sul Ross University in Alpine, Texas
-on display and available for purchase February 29 thru April 30 2008-