You have to sniff out joy. Keep your nose to the joy trail.

Instead 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.

There 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?"

Sixteen million colors in your palette are hard for any artist, especially a beginner, to turn down.

Every time somebody makes an Indian movie...Cher on a horse with a headdress and a miniskirt...the fashion industry cashes in.

I 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.

I 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.