The key is in remaining just aloof enough from a painting so that you know when to stop.
Buffy Sainte-MarieWhen we draw on the tablet, the drawing shows up on the computer screen. If we have chosen to tell the computer that the stylist is to behave like a piece of chalk, or a pen, or a wet brush, it will.
Buffy Sainte-MarieEverybody's creative. We create our songs and our paintings, our families and our children. Every one of us is on the cutting edge of the future.
Buffy Sainte-MarieSome people say I was very brave, but I really just didn't know any better. All I had was my originality.
Buffy Sainte-MarieDigital art software has empowered both the painterly side of photographers, and the photographer side of painters.
Buffy Sainte-MarieThere is an exercise I teach at colleges: Get yourself a canvas and a bunch of acrylics and go into a very dimly lighted room. Dip a brush into one of the colors, slap it on the canvas, don't look, close your eyes, make a painting, don't look, turn the lights on and see what you've got. I think this releases people from the editor in their life that's always standing over their shoulder saying, "Oh, you don't have any talent; who do you think you are?"
Buffy Sainte-MarieMy first Macintosh was a 128k machine which I upgraded to 512k the minute it became possible.
Buffy Sainte-MarieI had a teacher's degree and a degree in Oriental Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts. I thought I was going to India to study but all of a sudden, I had a career in music. It really surprised me.
Buffy Sainte-MarieAs a teenager I started painting and playing guitar...Music has been my playmate, my lover, and my crying towel...This song ("Until It's Time for You To Go") popped into my head while I was falling in love with someone I knew couldn't stay with me. The words are about honesty and freedom inside the heart.
Buffy Sainte-MarieI sang a song in Hindi; nobody even knew what that was. Singing about Native American issues, nobody did that... I had no reason to want to copy anybody else... All I had was my originality.
Buffy Sainte-MarieSixteen million colors in your palette are hard for any artist, especially a beginner, to turn down.
Buffy Sainte-MarieEvery time somebody makes an Indian movie...Cher on a horse with a headdress and a miniskirt...the fashion industry cashes in.
Buffy Sainte-MarieDigital imaging allows both groups to rise above the limitations of mess and clutter and mechanics, and apply our talents to creating images limited only by our imaginations.
Buffy Sainte-MarieThe time I save setting up and cleaning up probably balances out by the time I spend on output.
Buffy Sainte-MarieThat is, an artist who creates lots of work probably experiences prolific days and slower days.
Buffy Sainte-MarieI feel sorry for people of good heart who have never had a chance to learn the realities of Native American everything - not just our history but the sweetness and the beauty and the reasons why were so close to Mother Earth.
Buffy Sainte-MarieSome of my songs are like dreams, and when you go to sleep at night you don't know if you're gonna have a dream or what you're gonna dream about.
Buffy Sainte-MarieIf I'm interrupted, it's just a minor inconvenience, but not a disaster, because it's easy to get back where I was: that is, the paint has not changed consistency; the light has not moved.
Buffy Sainte-MarieI had no reason to want to copy anybody else. What I wanted to give audiences for the few minutes that I thought my career would last was something unique.
Buffy Sainte-MarieAnother time factor is output: proofing and printing. That is, getting your work out of the computer and onto paper and having it satisfy you. It can be time consuming and expensive.
Buffy Sainte-MarieI'm trying to entice people, and sometimes my information is very hard hitting. So I've always wanted to have a soft approach.
Buffy Sainte-MarieI really work hard to shape the song so that it's attractive... You don't want to give people the information in an enema.
Buffy Sainte-MarieGrab a guitar, put some kind of strings on it, a banjo string, then a violin string, then a guitar string, tune it any way you want, and make some noise, and see what you get. And work on it until you get something that you think is interesting. That's all there is to art for me.
Buffy Sainte-MarieI didn't know what I was gonna get the first time I sat down at a piano, but I loved it and it became my playmate for life.
Buffy Sainte-MarieInstead of kids just hearing about beads and baskets and fringe, and about what 'was' and 'were,' we present Native American culture as a living contemporary culture.
Buffy Sainte-MarieI always had wished somebody else would sing my songs, but there wasn't anybody who knew them, so I sang them myself and eventually became a better singer and guitar player.
Buffy Sainte-MarieBut in the old days, visual artists used to fall into two distinct categories: those of us who created images with cameras and those of us who applied stuff onto other stuff, with brushes or other tools.
Buffy Sainte-MarieThe paintings are transferred from my computer to a disk, and I can hand it to the printer this way; or I can modem the painting to the printer over the phone lines from my house in Hawaii.
Buffy Sainte-MarieThere is so much joy in native culture but so much poverty. It's very disturbing.
Buffy Sainte-MarieWhat can government do? They can listen to their own people. But I'll tell you what citizens can do, when we elect one of these people - whether we think it's a good guy or a bozo - you got to stay on the case. You don't vote and go home and give them the keys to the car, he'll drive you right off a cliff. You have to help people to stay honest.
Buffy Sainte-MarieBy looking at the questions the kids are asking, we learn the scope of what needs to be done.
Buffy Sainte-MarieTake a bunch of little kids to the beach and they all make art. Adults are too stupid to call it art, but it is art. They'll use their imaginations, make drama, make up characters, make pictures in the sand, they'll make up songs that no one's ever heard before. All kids, I think, are creative, but they get it pounded out of them in school.
Buffy Sainte-MarieThe artistic process in digital art is very much the same as for making other kinds of paintings.
Buffy Sainte-MariePeople sometimes ask me, because of the blacklisting, "Do you hate the government? Don't you hate white people?" No, it's greed that's the problem.
Buffy Sainte-Marie