Tim Cox has gone fishing twice already this year. That might not seem like much to most avid fishermen, but Cox isn’t complaining. It’s more fishing that he’s done for the better part of a decade.

In 2010, Cox became the vice president of the Cowboy Artists of America (CAA). The next year, when he was president, the organization officially moved from its long-time headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. That transition consumed most of Cox’s time for much of his two-year term as president.

“I think I averaged about four hours of sleep a day for those two years,” he says. “I got calls all day long and then even more emails, too. Most days I couldn’t tell if I was waking up or trying to go to sleep.”

He managed to keep painting, though. “I’d work at night, after things quieted down,” he says.

Tim Cox

A Dry Season
Oil
20″x30″

“A couple of years back, I was helping a rancher gather a group of older cattle to sell. The rains hadn’t come, and the pastures were dry. It was in the early hours of the day, when the light is low and colors are warm. The backlit dust helped create a mood that inspired me to try to capture it on canvas.”

Tim Cox

Date Night
Oil
24″x30″

“When my son Jake and his wife Carmin got married, I did a painting of them called As Good As It Gets. So, when my daughter Calla married, I wanted to do one of her and her husband Justin. When they were courting, a lot of their dates were riding and working their horses, and that continues today.”