June a year ago, a massive wildfire swept Jeff Davis County. Volunteer firefighters, including my husband, fought the stampeding  blaze all week. This wind-driven inferno raced within a mile of my studio, and that's way too close.  While the firefighters and Highway 166 kept the fire from charring our corner of the world, some sixty thousand acres immediately opposite us burned. I glumly resigned myself to seeing and breathing soot for seasons to come. Silly me.

All it took was rain.

First, charred survivors of branching cholla bravely sent out new growth, even a few pale blossoms. Within a month, you could drive the route from town to my studio without realizing there'd been a fire—-that is, unless you knew there used to be oak trees lining the mountains. Or how many antelope once roamed there. The grass on the fireswept side of Hwy 166 came in noticably greener than the grass that hadn't burned. One stretch of grassland sprouted a deep turquoise color, the likes of which you associate with glacial lakes. Had I painted it, the color wouldn't have read true. By late July, all the burned acreage was a lush jungle of renewed vegetation, and those of us who'd witnessed the fire appreciated every speck of color that presented itself in the landscape.

One hot summer evening post-fire, we drove out to visit our friend Boogie. This socializing involves trucking five miles off the highway on washboarded, potholed dirt, a half-hour adven ture that took us through the heart of the burned zone. Halfway there, grazing cattle blocked the scraped surface that passes for a road in these parts. The large hairy mammals guarding Boogie's road seemed miffed at being disturbed by our diesel truck.  (You know a ranch cow is miffed when he lowers his head to one side, rolls his eyes until they show red, then makes a loud noise bearing zero resemblance to the pleasant "moos" Old McDonald hears from his farm cattle.) I can't say I blame them. There they stood, thousands of pounds of beef chewing their cuds, lifting their tails now and then to fertilize the land, flicking away flies and watching the sun go down. Then up we drive, a silver ton of noise and fumes and waves of dust.. "We're intruding , aren't we?" Jim said. "They belong here, live here, do cattle things all day. We're the outsiders..."

Even as distinguished members of the much touted species homo sapiens, we felt as if we'd rudely crashed a family dinner.  We convinced the lead steer to move off the road before he could shout "Remember McDonald's!" and lead a stampeded charge against our truck. We drove on, scattering cattle, feeling a little like peeping Tom's. We discussed the myriad unseen worlds around us, pockets of nature that care nothing about us humans with our petty vehicular activities. I mean, we're the center of our own universes until a herd of surly cattle block our road.
 
We came to a familiar stock tank. The previous month, we'd seen it lined with cracked earth and rimmed by brown grass and dessicated cactus. Now, it held water. Amazingly, strung around its perimeter like a jeweled necklace grew a jeweled lushness of vegetation: mesquite, cholla, catclaw, prickly pear. Deep footprints—most unidentifiable, so many layers had been superimposed on one another—etched its muddy banks. Nothing bigger than birds moved, yet the tank vibrated with life. This flat place between the mountains, so depressingly desolate even before the fire, now thrummed with life. I thought of musicians tuning up their instruments before a concert. Waiting.

What creatures did that tank wait to host that night? Who drank there? What crept in its shadows? There would've been death there, and birth maybe. I don't know. I was an outsider, only an observer. All I know about that place is that at dusk that day, it was there, waiting for whatever might want its water. Seeing that tank decorated with the products of wind and fire and rain made me feel serene, excited, good about life. And so, I painted what I felt there.

What would an observer feel, looking in on the pocket of world I inhabit and claim as my own?
I can't answer that. I do know you can learn a lot from irritable cattle on dusty roads.


"AWAITING NIGHT VISITORS" by Lindy C Severns   copyright 2009 
12" x 18" pastel on Wallis museum-grade paper   $1900 framed

One of three Lindy Severns 2009 TRAPPINGS OF TEXAS entries on display at the Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine TX
on the Sul Ross University campus. The invitational juried western art and gear show, held in conjunction with the Cowboy Poetry Gathering, opens the last weekend in February and runs through April. For information or to purchase tickets to the opening reception and preview party contact assistant director Liz Jackson, ejackson@sulross.edu.

You're always invited to visit my website at oldspanishtrailstudio.com where you can learn more about Trappings and my Far West Texas landscapes.