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.