Buffy Sainte-Marie

I've always had that attitude about my career: it's something that I do, but it's not my whole life. I have a real life, a personal life: I've got a lot of chickens, I've got a horse, I've got a kitty-cat, I've got a lot of goats, I've got animals all over the place.

Digital art software has empowered both the painterly side of photographers, and the photographer side of painters.

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

We allow each other so little enjoyment or even tolerance for our individualities, our uniquenesses, and yet to me, that's what it's all about.

The art of the three-minute song is more like journalism than writing a big 400-page book. You want to be brief, you want to make sense right yen and there. And sometimes that takes a bit of work.

But 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.

When somebody says, 'Oh, Buffy, you're such a warrior for peace', I stop them and say, 'No, I'm not really a warrior for peace. What I promote is alternative conflict resolution'.

I work closely with the printer to get the final print the way I want it.

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.

I'm not like a professional writer with professional skills. Songs kind of come into my head the same way they did when I was a kid. I say I'm an overgrown kindergarten kid. I work on songs.

As a teenager I started painting and playing guitar.

Once an artist explores the vast variety of tools and features available on the great programs, we're hooked.

That is, an artist who creates lots of work probably experiences prolific days and slower days.

The artistic process in digital art is very much the same as for making other kinds of paintings.

Digital 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.

When 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.

If 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.

The key is in remaining just aloof enough from a painting so that you know when to stop.

By looking at the questions the kids are asking, we learn the scope of what needs to be done.

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

Another 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.

The 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.

The time I save setting up and cleaning up probably balances out by the time I spend on output.

I was adopted without the benefit of papers. They used to hide adoption in the forties; I don't know why. Perhaps it was shameful. I could have been kidnapped - there are all kinds of crazy things that people have done - but I got over dealing with that a long time ago.

I'm so happy to be a song-writer - I'm even surprised when I get to record anything. I consider it a considerable privilege and a blessing to have a medium of expression that has a place in the world.

It was a black and white only computer at the time, but it kept me fascinated.

We also have the option of scanning in an image from outside the computer... a photo, or a sketch done with traditional tools; and we can then paint, manipulate, process, change, and further develop the image within the computer, watching our progress on the monitor.

My first Macintosh was a 128k machine which I upgraded to 512k the minute it became possible.