Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lindy C Severns. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Lindy C, thanks for joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

My parents encouraged me to constantly learn and to reach beyond my grasp. During my early years, Mom was a commercial artist, Daddy, a high school basketball coach. Both were high achievers who constantly challenged themselves to learn and grow, pulling me right along with them. Because of them, “I can’t do that” wasn’t in my early vocabulary. When my mother was asked to create an animated television ad back in the early 1950’s, she said, “Sure,” then penned a personal letter to Walt Disney asking how to animate a drawing. I remember pouring over the personal letter of instruction she received back, then watching her meticulously pen her line drawing on successive transparent sheets to create crude movement. I watched her go from Don’t Know but I’ll Learn to I Did That and It’s a Winner! (The TV station’s first-ever animated ad, it still runs from time to time as a retrospective piece.)
Daddy, who took his team all the way to a State Championship, taught me that sinking winning shots is the result of hard work, constant practice shooting baskets. He warned me that having talent was just something you were given, and wasn’t nearly as important as working hard. He also held me in his lap and read to me most every night. By the time I started school, I knew how to use a dictionary and was devouring books like animal crackers. But when I came home from first grade crying because I didn’t know how to jump a rope, Daddy dropped what he was doing, took me out in the driveway and tied a rope to the car handle. He swung the other end and patiently put me through increasingly bigger hops, then jumps, then high leaps. I went to school the next day adept at jump rope and believing if I worked hard enough, I could do almost anything I set my heart on, or at least, go down trying.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was born an artist. I’ve always drawn and painted. Mom made sure I never lacked for crayons and paper, even after I decorated the hall of our tiny rent house with bold, unrestrained swashes of color. When I started school, I was shocked to learn the other kids didn’t draw like I did. Apparently also born an entrepreneur, I made my first art sales selling Santa drawings to my first grade classmates for their milk money. This was a highly lucrative niche until my teacher noticed half the kids didn’t have the five pennies for that little carton of milk we could buy during our morning break. I would’ve happily given her a commission, but the lady shut me down.

I’ve painted professionally most of my adult life. The last couple of decades, I’ve been a full time artist. I work harder at this than I ever worked at a “real” job. While my husband Jim is hugely supportive and helps every way he can, for the most part, I am a one man show. I create, I frame, I market, package and ship; I bookkeep, I post on social media, I exhibit. For every hour I spend at my easel, I spend ten taking care of business so I can spend yet another hour at my easel, creating. That’s just how it is when you’re a one gal show and want to succeed. I’m not shy about selling my art. Supplies are expensive, and my time is even more valuable. Money isn’t a dirty word!

Along with the need to make money, however, is the need to share the beauty I see in the world as only I see it, as only I can share it. I try to keep my business sense and my creativity running in tandem. This means constantly switching between my left brain and my right brain, which can confuse even me. Let one overtake the other and the creative life can fall flat or read false while the artist slowly starves. I never step up to my easel seeing dollar signs. When I paint, the world falls away completely. When I paint, I am doing what I’m meant to do. What I must do to be whole.

Many other interests and passions have filled my life, but I’ve always defined myself as an artist. I believe creative people have an itch that can’t be scratched without sharing visions, without making something that didn’t exist before. A drawing is only marks set to paper, but those marks can turn magical when the artist shares a vision straight from the soul.

In my case, I’ve always loved nature. I was the little girl with skinned knees and scuffed shoes, always chasing butterflies, climbing trees, rescuing baby birds. I was constantly exploring the world around me, digging for seashells or fishing worms, or watching how quickly the sky changes as the sun sets. Soft pastels, pure pigments compressed into sticks are such sensual paints– using a pastel stick feels almost like spreading color straight from my fingertips–the medium taps into that same feral part of me that enjoys running barefoot in cool grass or patiently digging an arrowhead out of packed earth with my chipped fingernails. Writers are advised to “Write what you know!” I’d offer that same wisdom to artists: Paint what you know. Landscape painting, skyscapes, wildlife and wildflowers fill most of my canvases because that’s what I know best. I love painting in oils or in watercolors, but if I had to choose only one medium to work in, it would be soft pastels.

And if I had to choose only one subject to paint, it would be skies. The wild child Me who used to run around catching lizards and trying to draw around their tiny toes also spent hours watching clouds shape into dragons and giraffes. I dreamed of flying through those clouds. Many years later, a wise friend commented, “If you love flying so much, why don’t you learn how?” Bells went off in my head, and my father’s voice rang in my ears reminding me I could learn to do most anything, as long as I was willing to work for it. And, I was. I sold most of my meager post-college belongings (ten-speed, stereo, diamond engagement ring from a failed marriage) and signed up for flying lessons at a time when young ladies didn’t really do that sort of thing. That changed my life, and ultimately influenced my painting in a wonderfully unplanned for way.

I met my professional pilot husband of over four decades at the airport as I was completing my private pilot’s license. Three months after we married, I piloted a small single engine plane through unmarked power lines, totaled the plane and broke my back. They put me in a heavy brace and confined me to house rest for several months. This was a setback. It was also the longest period I’d spent in my almost prematurely shortened life without painting, although I was able to draw for short stretches. Among other things that crossed my mind (near-death experiences bring what’s important to you up front and center) was that I still had many paintings left in me.

It took two years, but I recovered and signed up for a weekly oil painting class. I did a little freelance commercial art and hated that. I kept flying. Much later, one day, my husband needed a copilot for a trip in the jet. One thing led to another, and my husband gave me the opportunity of a lifetime as he trained me in a corporate jet, one we flew together as a crew for 17 years. He says when I paint clouds now, I’m channelling those skies. He’s probably right. All those hours spent skirting thunderstorms at 41,000 feet gave me as intimate a connection with the sky as I have with the land I paint. Life offers gifts. It’s up to us to open them and use them. I am a skypainter.

Life also offers opportunities that can involve great risk. We grew tired of luxury hotels and rent cars and being on 24-hour call/365 days a year. We bought a big RV, sold our longtime home on acreage we’d lovingly landscaped ourselves and (gasp!) quit our jobs before retirement age. We meant to travel the country, but soon realized we’d been doing that forever. Without intending to, we found ourselves firmly planted on a friend’s remote mountain ranch in Far West Texas. Big Bend country. And with much inspiration and little thought, I found myself painting the high desert ranchland and stunning mountains of the borderlands as well as the Chisos Mountains, the Rio Grande and the stark desert of the National Park.
This is what I’m “known” for, Big Bend and West Texas skies. I paint my world.

Less risky opportunities have presented themselves over the years, gallery representations, invitational exhibits, publication and interviews like this one. Always it feels as if these gifts have fallen into my lap, but then I look back and recognizes the turns that put me there. It’s those turns that can be scary, because they take you onto a new path. I think it’s important to trust that every new turn brings new opportunities, new chances to grow, learn or share your creations.
(A recommendation from an amazing artist I follow online but have never met got me this interview.)

The Internet has made being a solo act as an artist much easier than it was twenty years ago. I live on a mountainside in the middle of one of the least populated areas in the country, yet I’ve been featured in a PBS documentary, published in an elegant art history book on contemporary Texas artists; I’ve spoken in front of a few hundred people a ticketed event at Dallas Heritage Auction Gallery, shown and sold on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. My art hangs in almost every state in the USA, in the London, Canada, Germany and Australia. I’m proud of that, because I sold many of those pieces myself, forming long-distance friendships through our email correspondence. Art is not only about beauty, but a means of connecting us to one another.

I was honored as the 2020 Distinguished Alum for the College of Arts and Sciences of Texas Tech University, unexpected recognition that pretty much blew me away. They even sent a film crew down to interview me and video me painting. (No pressure there.) The best part of that experience was forming friendships with the crew and university personnel. I showed them my world and we had fun sharing it.
The Tech folks later commissioned a painting for their Christmas card, then also reproduced it as a small print enclosure for the VIP mailings. This project spurred two more video productions, one on my turf, one on campus. Texas Tech now has more videos of me than even my grandparents took of me with their movie camera. You never know what lies around that next corner. There is no map!

Because making strong, sincere connections with my collectors is essential to my feeling good about asking them to pay good money for my art, I do my part not only by painting every piece as if it will go into the Louvre, but by using archival materials and high end supplies. I don’t cut corners. When mistakes happen, I fess up and take responsibility, then make things right. These elemental tenets of customer service apply to selling art just as they apply to any business. I am proud of what I paint, and I am equally proud of the way I treat people who buy my art. It’s all one and the same thing.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social media is like downhill skiing. Some people take to it and race with it, despite the discomfort. Others huddle in misery, clutching a cup of hot coffee and wishing they were anywhere else. That doesn’t mean the Miserable Ones can’t learn to love snowflakes.

I am such a private person, I never dreamed I’d have a social media following that I actually foster and value. I struggled for years with sharing on social media. Then I read something that changed how I perceived not only my followers, but myself. It was one of those simple quizzes, this one designed to direct your social posts. I have no idea what the questions were, but the point of the quiz was to determine what you wanted your posts to do. Entertain? Excite? Educate? My results: INSPIRE. Hands down. Inspire!

As soon as I saw that word, something clicked. I could INSPIRE. That’s why I paint!
Having that goal gave me a direction that felt natural to me. In between warm and fuzzy posts of my dogs and parrot (those I was comfortable with) I started posting brief stories about the paintings I posted. What, Why, Where, Who, but mainly, the feelings behind a place, a painting. Sometimes a funny story about problems I encountered. Confessions about failing, then starting anew. Text that came from the heart, certainly, but without the discomfort of pouring my heart out to strangers. My goal was to share, and in doing so. to Inspire. That felt good, Natural. Sincere.

I began getting comments. I answer every single one. I looked for groups that revolved around my painting subjects or my lifestyle. Some, I joined and left comments on. Sometimes I’d post a painting on a group page, adding an appropriate story but no sales pitch. I got more comments. I did more responding to comments. I made more friends, and not all of them virtual. Sincere comments, sincere friendships. In less than a year, my longtime following of 150 jumped to 300.

I realized I no longer had a love/hate relationship with social media. I was out there, skiing in the cold and enjoying it.

For the last year, at the recommendation of my website marketing gurus (ArtStoreFronts) I’ve posted at least once daily on FB and on IG. I limit myself to those two platforms because I can’t handle more and because those are known to generate art sales. I learned to make stories, then reels. Why? People may see a reel that don’t follow me, or a follower misses my post but catches a story. Toss all this out and see where it lands. But make it fit YOU.
I vary between serious and silly, factual and frivolous. But always, I seek to inspire, to make someone’s day even a tiny bit better because they read my post. I hope to sell art from my painting posts, and sometimes do that directly from a link I add to that product on my website. Sometimes I’ll sell a painting I posted a month ago, sometimes I never know if a post was a successful market tool. But always, I connect with people. These are real people out there, not Followers. They deserve my undivided attention for that moment. My following on both platforms is bumping the 1.7K mark, and growing.
(Did I mention I answer every comment?)

I use a scheduling app (Tailwind) for my IG posts, just to spread things out, and despite the recommendation to post when you can immediately respond to comments, I don’t do that. I keep my studio time sacred, free of all social media, and respond to comments over coffee the next morning before posting again. I usually do a FB post first on my laptop, then cut and paste and slightly modify it for IG. Often I’ll add another couple of short IG posts directly from my phone later in the day– our parrot bathing, or a selfie, me with paint on my nose, Jim in his cowboy hat. I try to keep it real, and in doing so, I connect better. I let them know I’m real, too. I just don’t gnash and moan and complain. I inspire. And we all feel better for that.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Back when we were flying, teaching taekwondo and maintaining an acre and a half of city landscaping ourselves, I stole time from an impossible schedule and painted in the guest bedroom. There’s nothing wrong with that, except I felt guilty every time I walked in there to paint. At the time, I was selling out of a small gallery, and occasionally out of our home. I’d done a couple of large corporate contracts– I’d bought our motor home out of painting money, for heavens’ sake. But I felt like a kid with her hand in the candy jar every time I spent a couple of hours painting. And I hated, hated asking people to pay for my art.

For reasons known only to the Universe, I saw a book titled THE ARTIST’S WAY by Julia Cameron. If you’ve read it, you already understand the impact it had on me. It’s a twelve week exercise in exploring, accepting and releasing creativity. I cried my way through the first chapter, then did every single exercise as scheduled. In the process, I realized that although I’d always been proud of being an artist, I’d also always believed art wasn’t quite important enough to give it top priority or to (shudder here) ASK PEOPLE TO PAY FOR IT. Why? I have no idea why. I just felt like art wasn’t a worthy pursuit, and that my art wasn’t something people would spend a lot of money acquiring.

This changed everything. I’d run our martial arts school for a decade or more, a hobby that became a successful small business. I never felt guilty for the time I spent on that. I lolled around hotel pools during our downtime as we flew trips. I never felt guilty for sunbathing. Art was perhaps the most important, unique activity in my life, yet I had diminished its value to both myself and to others. Why? Why?
Why didn’t really matter. Abracadabra! I shrugged guilt off my chest. I raised my prices. I stopped doing portrait commissions and starting painted whatever I felt like painting.
And when people asked me what I “did”, I learned to smile and say, adding an air of mystery, “I’m an Artist.”
Collectors who buy my art WANT MY ART. I’m not twisting their arms. I am creating something that didn’t exist before, and if it speaks magic to them, I sell it to them for the listed price. Supply and demand sets my prices now, not guilt. Whew. Big lesson there.

When I teach, my first goal is to give those artists permission to create. Once I’ve convinced them they deserve to paint, I’ve given them wings.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lindycseverns.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigbendartist
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigBendArtist