¡Colores!; Interview with Frank Buffalo Hyde

I did it. You did it. You said it wrong. Yeah. We've had this discussion at the Mayak about sort of how to list like my travel affiliation at the beginning of the exhibit. So we started out by saying Frank Buffalo Hyde, American artist, and then as you go through the exhibit, you see the different texts and go through the different sections. At the end of the exhibit, there is a listing of my travel affiliation, which is Anandaga Beaver Clan. So should I go through the whole thing, all in one sentence? Oh, you don't have to. I just want to make sure, like, if I, you know, the guy who does the book, he's so worried, it's like Santa Fe artist, Frank Buffalo Hyde, like I just want to make sure I dress you like you prefer. Right. Well, I got, I got a text from my mother this week saying, I saw something online and it says that you're Nez Perse, and Nez Perse is my father's tribe.

We are a matrilineal people, the Anandaga, and so we are identified by what our mother is. So it's correct to say that I am Anandaga from the Beaver Clan. I also have some Nez Perse ancestry, but I'm not identified that way, or enrolled in their tribal roles. So it's just like, you know, a lot of people get confused because my father's Nez Perse, they always put that tag and then I just stop correcting them, but, you know, it's correct to say that I'm Anandaga. O-N-D-A-G-A. So Central New York, part of the Hade Nishoni, the French gave us the name, the Iroquois, we might know them as the Iroquois Confederacy, but we call ourselves the Hade Nishoni. So, all right, I asked the first customer, I'm just going to go straight to the point.

You know, I saw this, you made a post on Facebook last week, you know, it was like, you know, I can't just like be prescribed and start painting a painting. Like, there's kind of an inspiration that happens, or it's like a process, it's like making something that's really meaningful to you. It's not just like you can just come in and start painting something and sell it or whatever, you know, I thought that was really interesting and like, to the point of like, so I wanted to ask you what it's like when you're ready to start a painting, like, what prompts you to make? I usually have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to be making before I do it, because, you know, one painting informs the next, or my work is very much reactionary, if it's something in the popular culture, you know, the news, or an article I've read or written. It's, it all informs what I'm going to do.

So I kind of have a pretty good idea of what I want the painting to be about. The difference is, you know, I don't ever sit down at a canvas and say, well, you know, if I make this, you know, someone's definitely going to buy it. It's not really my motivation. It's not the primary motivation and, you know, granted, we live on the planet Earth and money is in necessity. So, you know, if it does become a popular image, great, but it's not, you know, it's not the driving force with my behind what I do. It's, I wouldn't say it's secondary, it's just not, it's not on the radar right away. It's, you know, it's something that I feel like I have to make and I am very conscious and I feel a great responsibility about what I put out into the world as far as subject matter wise. So, you know, I don't, I don't have a formula is what I'm trying to say. So I don't have that sort of set thing that I do over and over and over again that people constantly want.

I mean, there are images that are popular that I make and, but it's not, it's not the type of painter that I am, I'm not like a, I'm not a, a baker, I don't bake cakes, I don't mass produce the same image in slightly different colors for your living room or your couch. Do we have a blanket? I think you put a blanket on the floor. Yeah. So, I did want to ask you what does motivate it though. That is a very good question and honestly. Could you give like context like the word bit? The motivation behind what I do is also elusive to me. I think any artist worth their salt questions why they do what they do. I question why I continue to do what I do almost, you know, weekly if not daily. If you think about it, I think I often think about it.

Why am I making this work? Why is it important, you know, it's, I think I have a responsibility to number one document the time that we live in and number two to create a dialogue. It's opening a conversation about identity and popular culture and where is the line between being... I want to pause. I just wanted to back you up because that motorcycle or whatever that was. Is it really come through? Yeah, I was here in that. Should we close the window back there? It's closed. It was... All right. Close up. Okay. Get the case out for a second here. But I thought it was a good statement. Okay. You know, you're talking about that responsibility. Yeah.

Yeah, I believe it's important that an artist document the time that they live in and where the line between being inspired by an appropriation is, there's a fine line. And I think, for me, the difference is intent. And it's what you intend to do with these images and these native icons that is different. If, you know, you want to sell underwear, that's a different story between, you know, commenting on commodification. Right. And so that response document your time, your taking, you take that to heart. Yeah. I think it's, you know, I definitely believe that painting at where art in general is very noble. It's kind of romantic to an artist that it's, you know, in a digital age, we don't necessarily need to make paintings anymore because we have apps on your phone and software that can

create textured paintings on canvas so you can turn any photo into a painting. And it's, you know, we've spoken before about the John Henry and the, and the train scenario. It's, I think it's very much a conversation about, or a sort of honoring of the human hand in creativity. Can I ask you a question, maybe just bring that up again, but the John Henry thing. But instead of saying it as we've talked before, or it dates it, because I want to put it all within and I'm kind of not part of this. I'm just, yeah. So, um, in motivating that, that, um, inspiration and being engaged and documenting the time that you live in, you know, what is that? Making, being a painter at the beginning of the 21st century, I mean, there's a lot of responsibility as far as, um, making, being true to what it is to be a painter.

I mean, so much, so many artists these days have access to digital software where they can spit out any image that they want instantaneously, slap it on any surface and then put color on it and call it a painting. I mean, is it a painting? I mean, there's paint involved, I guess, by definition it actually is a painting, but to me, there's a nobility that goes to markmaking and, um, most of my work is about content, not necessarily. It used to be a toss up between content and process, you know, as an artist, as an artist, the chairs, you sort of whittle down your process and sort of decide what things you want to keep and what things you want to get rid of as far as, you know, the process. In that respect, there's always going to be the conflict between artists that use digital

imagery or computer software versus artists that are primarily painters and I'm not separating myself from that equation that I use my cell phone as a sketchbook, as a source material. And, but also it's sort of like a John Henry versus the train scenario versus the human hand versus technology. It's always going to be a struggle until it's not and then when it's not, you know, it's going to be a problem. What's the John Henry versus the train scenario? There's on canvas versus painters spinning out digital imagery or making paintings on the computer and printing them out. How's that related to John Henry? Well, there is an old, I might be recalling it wrong, but there was an old fable about John Henry. He used to drive stakes on a railroad track. And then somehow he got into a competition with a steam engine train that could do something

faster than he could. And I'm probably going to have to Google this and do it over, but it's like, it's man versus technology because at the time the steam train was the height of human engineering. And he competed against the train and I think ultimately did win, but had to sacrifice something great for that victory. So it's, that statement is merely just humans versus technology as it pertains to, in my case, fine art. Yeah, I think that's really, you know, I want to take a step back because I wanted to bring that up a little bit later into, like one of the things I wanted to give credit to you, even though you don't really need it, but there's that sense of legacy in art. And you've been part of a conversation in the art world or been privy to it, even,

which is a privilege of sorts, you know, to understand that dialogue. And your dad was an artist, and your dad was like, did he go to IA, and your mom did too. And so there's this legacy of art in your family. So you grew up with art, but not even not only, but it's like, it's traditional because you're growing up with art and like making things. So what is that? My parents both attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in the 60s when it was still a BIA boarding school. And at that time, it was a great experiment. They were very much run like a BIA school. They did not have the control over their work that artists today have it. I mean, anything that you produced in those studios was subject to the BIA, so consequently,

some of their work was taken oftentimes right off the easel for shows and sometimes pieces that the student didn't like and discarded were also retrieved and shown for sale. So that is the same time that, you know, everyone holds up as the golden age of contemporary native American art because there were so many artists that were pushing the boundary of what contemporary native art was. So I very much grew up in that tradition of artists that were taking their respective mediums to another place, whether it be the use of power tools or just by merely the subject matter that they painted. You got to remember before that, contemporary native art was considered merely mostly craft of like flat style, Oklahoma style, Dorothy Dunn style painting.

And these artists were experimenting with the medium and pushing it in different ways and doing purely abstract work or what later became defined as the vanguard of contemporary native art. But at the time, they were just allowing themselves to create and not being pigeonholed into what, you know, the previous market or other generations had been doing. So it did, it was a renaissance in a lot of ways, literature, performing arts, painting, sculpture, music. And a lot of those artists were all in school at the same time, Doug Hyde, T.C. Cannon, Rolbus, Alfred Youngman, Bill War Soldier, all of these artists were simultaneously arriving at the same solution to something that didn't exist before. They pulled something out of the air that didn't exist before and made it into something

that was exciting and really lit the fire under what we do today. And, you know, so, but I also think now we're living in just as an interesting time because there are a lot of Native Americans telling their own stories via their respective disciplines. And it's exciting to see that we're not asking, we're not waiting for someone to come along and grant us permission to tell our own stories, we're making them every day. Yeah, totally, you know what I mean? Dorothy Dunes, Blue Bambi, Style Paintings, and it brings up an interesting subject though, I mean there's, there is that reactionary component to making work. It's like if you take away that agitation, that sort of cross the board, art that you don't agree with, like would you have as much resistance to it if it wasn't there?

So, I think definitely without that Bambi art, he can and wouldn't have had something to push himself beyond or to any place to take it as far as, you know, painting goes or content. You know, the great thing about his work is that it functions on many different levels and is just as relevant today as it was then, if not more so, because his compositions were so complex and the way that he painted was so complex that he was commenting on social issues then and those issues haven't gone away, I mean, they're still there and I, you know, it's human nature, I don't think we're ever going to resolve most of our social issues. But it's, I'm just saying without, without the decorative art in this town that's masquerading as art, I wouldn't have a lot of things to sort of rail against in my work. So it's kind of, I always wonder if I lived somewhere else if I would still have that

same sort of need to define what my work is against the decorative art that's being sold, you know, here in town, landscapes, howling coyotes, cactus, you know, painting, so it's just, I've lived another part of the country and, you know, those issues don't go away but you're not, you're not seeing them every day, you're not like in it, it's not something that you're in contact all the time and my work did change when I didn't live in the area, I wouldn't necessarily say it was bad or better, it's, it was just different. But there's, well, first of all, it kind of reminds me of a reputation of being the third biggest art market in the country and I kind of dispute that because a lot of what's sold here is not necessarily what I consider to be art and then, you know, I've gotten in trouble before saying stuff like that, it's, but it's, it's, gotta, it's got

a very like, almost elitist attitude as far as, you know, Santa Fe is like hip, funky, but it started out as exactly the opposite and so it's just weird, having been born here and spent a lot of time here, I've seen Santa Fe change a lot and it's not always good, I mean, now you can get in traffic jams like twice a day whereas before you, you know, you would never even think you'd have to sit in a minute in traffic in Santa Fe, but it's, you know, the secret's out so everyone's moving. Well, it seems like, and I don't know, you know, to me, just like being here or not having trouble to a lot of other places where there is something like I, it seems like there's a dialogue that is able to come up because of like the engagement of the communities that are here and they've, people have stayed engaged on that level for a really long time, like,

you know, the Taoist public, you know, they've made a lot of, they've really like kept their community together. Yeah, absolutely. You know, the dialogue of engaging with things that are changing. Well, yeah, the Institute of American Indian Arts has a long history of engaging in dialogue or creating dialogue and, you know, my family has been a part of that from the beginning, my aunts, my uncles, my sisters have all gone to the Institute of American Indian Arts. I attended my wife attended there. And so in a very real sense, I feel like I am a result and part of me will always be loyal to the Institute of American Indian Arts, you know, I donate every year for their scholarship programs and no matter,

no matter how, what differences in, you know, how it's run or who's in power at the moment, the institution and the students for me are the power of the Institute of American Indian Arts. From day one, that's been true and it's true today. The real power of the Institute of American Indian Arts is the spark and the imagination of the students to take things to the next level past where the generation before them has taken them, no matter what it is. And it's, you know, it has brought a lot of people from different nations together. I mean, my mother would not have met my father being on a dog or from Central New York and him being, as a person, I know, if they weren't, if they didn't meet at this art school. And, you know, my case isn't unique. In that respect, there's a lot of IAA babies that are a product of that, you know, people meeting each other that might not necessarily have met each other in other circumstances. So it's important. It's definitely important. And that was, you know, one of the first schools. Now, there are a lot of, you know, at no

other time in history, have there been so many educated natives that are in law, that are in filmmaking, that are in music producing, that are, you know, they're producing their own work and managing themselves. And it's exciting. So it's, it's all part of, we're all part of a continuous line. I'm connected to all the artists that have come before me. As I hope the artists that come after us will feel that sort of connection that I do to the ones that, you know, to us, yeah. Yeah. Do you, in overcoming something, it seems like, I mean, your work is so engaged in that dialogue. And it's also, I don't want to say controversial, but it, because it, I mean, I think it's like out there and open, like people discussing the stuff, but it feels like you're bringing a really unique, I mean, with this piece, with the drone, you know, the arrow is like shooting it down. It's very, it's not, it's telling the story

from like your perspective, like from your life and from your lineage. There's this, like, story to tell, like, do you feel like you've had to overcome anything to be able to do that? To say that, to say yes, would, would, would comment that I hear it comes again. Yeah. You know, I'm like, try to give you context because my voice won't be in it. Yeah. It doesn't have to be my question. Right. Okay. To, to say yes, that I've overcome something would, would have to agree that I actually overcame it. I'm, I'm still overcoming it. I'm, I overcome it daily. What, what do you overcome? I've, well, let me start by saying my father did two tours in Vietnam and was exposed to Agent Orange, used to defoliate the forest over there. And as a result, I was

born without my right arm and my right leg as a congenital birth defect. So starting, coming into the world in that way, where the doctors immediately, as I was born at the Indian hospital, ask my mother if she wanted to give me up to be in an institution. We're talking like less than five minutes after I was born. Now you would think that'd be a conflict of interest to approach a mother with any sort of decision right after, you know, she'd gone through the stress of giving birth. But to have that sort of, to come into the world under that stress of like, first the doctors, like, being surprised and not knowing what to do and then approaching a young mother about saying, you know, your son's never going to have a normal life, you should put him in an institution. And then to have her make the split second decision, like, absolutely not, he is staying with us. So that's how I came into the world. And I don't know if that was sort of kind of galvanized my, I wouldn't

say chip on my shoulder, but I've always had felt like I've had something to prove. And definitely is a driving force behind why I make my work. And it's also given me certain perspectives on the United States policies as it pertains to the military and its policies against Native people in this country. So yeah, it's definitely an issue that always runs for my work. And they're definitely, excuse me. It's in your heart. Like you overcome that. Yeah, it's, but I still don't feel like I have overcame it. It's still a daily issue. It's how I reconcile my father's service. It's how I reconcile my nation's history. It's

how I reconcile the fact that my arm and my leg will never be here, although I think of myself. And if you spend any time with me, a lot of people forget, like, after a certain amount of time, and then something will happen. And I'm like, oh, you know, totally forgot. Sorry. So a lot of my work is about miscommunication. And in my own life daily, there's a disconnect between how I feel about myself, how I see myself, and how I truly am and how other people perceive me. So that feeds into a lot of different issues artistically and culturally and politically. So that's kind of how my work is a manifestation of how I try to reconcile my reality. Can you give an example? When I'm sure you feel like maybe it does or maybe, but you come

out on top of that, it seems like, or like, you know, how do you overcome it? Is there an example through a painting that you could kind of relate? No, actually, you know, in my mind, I'm still in the process of overcoming that there's that argument about historical trauma as it pertains to Native Americans and the rape and murder and the theft of this country. And a lot of people say, why don't you just get over it? It happened so long ago, you know. We didn't, you know, people, we didn't have anything to do with it. We didn't do that to your people. Those were, you know, people that lived hundreds of years ago. So that as a parallel to my own situation, it's, why don't I just get over being born this way? Because I can't. It's something I deal with daily and it's, you know, being a minority within a minority is, it's honestly exhausting,

you know, and then it would be great if I painted still lifes and landscapes and happy flowery things and it would be, you know, almost a counterbalance to that. But I've chosen to do this work with content. And so it's even, even kind of alienates me even a little bit further. So I spent a lot of years on the periphery being an outsider looking in on the art scene. And I, you know, I value those years because I remember when nobody was interested in what I had to say, when nobody wanted to show my work, when nobody would give me their wall space to, you know, to show that I, you know, I felt that what I was making was valid and I still feel that way. But it's, I also remember, you know, not to take it for granted because it's not, it's not a given for any artist that anybody would be interested in what you make. So that's part, that goes back to part of the responsibility I feel

making images. And the images I put out into the world have to have a greater meaning other than compositionally being pleasing to look at. Otherwise, it's, you know, it's a waste of time for me. I don't want to make, you know, there's enough beauty and nature. I don't want to recreate the beauty that's already there. I want to comment on it. Well, do you feel like, you know, when you're using, do you feel that comes out in your gesture? Do you paint? Like, do you feel like you're, because your, your brush strokes are loose, but they're also just so there. I don't know, there's like a visceral quality to it. Honestly, I, for a long time, I thought that because I approach each painting organically, that maybe I thought I had a learning disability, like I thought, you know, I should already know what I'm doing. When I sit down to do it, it should be like, it should be like a

ritual, some sort of meditation that I do that I just go through this process, A, B, and C to get to the end, but almost always when I start a new piece, I just have this like amnesia where I don't remember how I solved the painting equations previously. So in a good way, that kind of pushes me to solve them differently sometimes, but also I definitely believe in making marks, mark making. It also is an extension of your energy and your energy, and what you are, and people do respond to that, and it sounds kind of new age or not, but it's, you know, it's true. What you, what you make is a vibration from yourself, and it resonates with people in a certain way, and it also depends on what they bring to it as well, their, their previous context. So it's, when I sit down, sometimes I catch a moment of, you know, thought to myself, and I, you know, wonder, why am I making these

paintings? Why is it important? Because if you think about it, making an image on a two-dimensional surface, and then thinking, or, you know, thinking that anybody would be interested in what you made, number one, or why you made it, it's pretty ridiculous. I mean, if you think about it, if you really think about it as based like, why would anybody care about what you think? And I've been fortunate enough that people have. You know, it hasn't resulted in me being independently wealthy, but, you know, I definitely have the respect of the art community, and that's, there's something to be said for that. And hopefully, you know, the money will come later or won't, or my daughter will get it when I'm gone after I'm 95, and, you know. Well, there's something about being true to yourself and like holding out for that. I mean, it has been a struggle for you and come through that struggle every day. And so, you're being in, you're being true to yourself and being honest with yourself

without that struggle. And like, I don't know what I'm trying to say. Like, I think that you could make it easy and just paint something that would just sell on Canyon or whatever. I already know what we'll sell. Indians, Indians with feathers, anything with feathers, just, that was actually some of my early work, because I would just put feathers on and stuff. But do you feel like you had to be honest? Yeah, no. Honestly, as a young artist, I tried to make a body of work that I thought would be appealing to people that was not necessarily political and people could tell that that wasn't me. I mean, I was showing at a gallery that's not around on Canyon Road anymore. And I was just really trying to see if that's all it took, you know, if that's all it takes is just to make something pretty, then fine. Yeah, easy. I could do that. That's what people, that's one of the like great art

fallacies or mysteries, depending on your point of view, is that every artist, every good artist, I should say, can paint in any style they want to. They can pretty much do what you make any image they want to, but they choose to make the work that they make deliberately, not because they don't know how to paint anything else or they're not good enough to paint anything else. They choose, and I choose to make the work that I make. I've been through every style that you can imagine and sort of like, you know, this is what has come out of that. And I give myself the room to change. I mean, I always tell people that I work with gallery wise that my work is going to change. It's not going to be this. And they're usually okay with it until it changes. And then they're like, okay, but you know, I've been fortunate to have museum shows and university shows and been in our anthologies. So there's

a trajectory to my work. It's definitely been written about and I've been fortunate to sort of every year or every five years get better gallery representation, better museum shows. And so continuing that way, I mean, I've always been a believer to be on the slow burn rather than to be a flash in a pen and be gone. Well, it is that honesty. It's like getting down to like, yeah. And it's, you know, I think every artist deals with that. Honestly, every artist deals with that sort of, that is the question. Do you make something that you believe in that you that you think is important? Or do you make something that you think will make money? And it is one of the artists dilemmas. And it's, you know, it all depends on where you are in your life. I didn't become a father until like six years ago.

So before then, I was fine. You know, my dog could go a couple of days without eating or could eat what I ate and I didn't have to buy special dog food for it. But it's definitely the artist dilemmas, you know, and I don't have the answer for that. I just know the choice that I made is to make the work that I feel will last after I'm gone. Because it means something, you know, so in that, like, why did you land on doing making commentary on digital technology? I'm specifically talking about the iPhone stuff where you're like shooting my Buffalo dancers. The work dealing with iPhones and digital reality, social media, really just came out of that need to document our times. I mean, the iPhone is the major change

in the last 50 years that's happened to the world. It's changed everything. And it's my comment. It's my way to process that because I didn't always have a cell phone. I got a cell phone in, I think, 2007. And now I can't live without my iPhone. It's like, it's my secretariat. It's my sketchbook, like I said. And it's just a cultural advancement that I had to comment on just because it's going to change technology is going to go farther. And we're going to look back on this time when cell phones were external or non-organic. This is going to happen. People are lazy. Like, I don't want to hold this hot, this heavy phone is so big. I'm just going to stick a chip inside your head or something.

Well, if you don't have a digital picture, it didn't happen, right? Yeah, if you're posted to Instagram, nobody was there. And so what do you think about that, what that does to something that, like, having that captured and put out on social media? Well, those images that I use are taken from dance demonstrations. They're done for the public. And I don't advocate anybody's reproducing any ceremonial content. But having said that, the dance demonstration here in the Southwest is part of our tourism. It's part of including the public and why they come here to Santa Fe, to be a part of the culture, to be a part of the Wild West. So I have mixed feelings just like I have mixed feelings about technology. I'm not saying it's better good. It just is. Tourism is. The art market here is. And so is the digital social media reality that we all live in. It's only going to get worse.

You know, all of those sci-fi movies where people have avatars and then they kind of lose their identity and what that is, that's already happening in a very real way that people spend so much time on social media that they don't really know how to exist in day to day or how to strike up a conversation with a stranger or how to open a door for somebody that they don't know. It's all very cold and text abbreviations and text conversations. You hear stories from young people these days that their relationships are started and ended via text or on social media. So it's a different time, whereas we were writing notes and throwing them in the hallway and whatever. Putting them in lockers. I'm going to do that now. Well, and you're saying one of the things you're saying to me too is that there's another stuff.

The social media is also a tool to keep people honest. Social media is also a tool to document history. Now we can, we have a record of police brutality. We have a record of infringement of social liberties. We have a record of illegal police actions like spraying people in sub-zero weather at standing rock. So very much so if those social media didn't exist, a lot of people could have lost their lives in those protests. But because they were telling their own stories again and broadcasting their own news was a valuable tool to keep everyone safe. I know, so it's really interesting. So this comes back to, you know, your work done. Yeah. Because you're documenting.

Yeah. That is true. That goes back to documenting, you know, painting versus taking a picture of it goes back to that noble act of making paintings. The first paintings that were made in history were to exchange information in caves that were like, where to hunt, how many, how many were killed in a certain area, where to find water, all that stuff. Later as we progressed through history, there were major events of, you know, an ocean voyage or a conquering, conquering of a land crossing a river. Painting started out as the news casts that are now being replaced by five second blurbs on your phone. So it's, you know, in a very real way, I have that sort of connection to paintings being about information, conveying information. So if there was a nuclear situation tomorrow, and if some of my work survived, there would be a record of some semblance of how life was at the beginning of the 21st century.

And that's, you know, that's always been my attitude towards painting is that it has to communicate something. Well, could you, you know, I'm really interested because you're saying that I'm back from marketing. I think the people respond in a very basic level to mark making. It's like the way you make a mark can affect, affect somebody. And that's something that's encoded in our DNA. And that's, that's. I'm interested in that too. It's just, you know, what I do, I've made thousands and thousands and thousands of paintings. You know, I've made hundreds of ugly paintings. I wouldn't admit it at the time, but yeah, they were horrible. And there's no shortcut in the horrible ugly work.

But in doing those paintings that were unsuccessful, you learn the visual vocabulary and the marks are the, are the alphabet of how you communicate. So mark making is important to me because it also carries a message on how you render something. People can tell how you feel about it or how you want them to feel about it, depending on how you represent it. And that goes back into stereotypes, it goes back into appropriation, it goes back to propaganda. So it's, it's definitely interesting to me that you can manipulate how you want the viewer to see things. Pain is, paint is really seductive. Pain is, you know, paint, what paint can do is very seductive. It can be drippy, it can be splashy, it can be very meaty, it can be bright, it can be super dark.

And I think humans responded that because those are all the things that we go through emotionally. That's interesting. You know, so I was going to ask you how painting communicates those issues, but I think you kind of said it. I feel like the stuff, because they're minimal. Over the years, I mean, I've gone through stages where I put everything I could think of in a painting, and it would just be on top of each other. It's a very schizophrenic looking and frenetic. And like over the years, I've sort of honed it down to going back and forth between that sort of really clean, rendered pop image to putting in little hints of abstract expressionist flares here, their clubs of paint. I think it's important for an artist to have a toolbox that, you know, they know how to do certain things so they can just call on that tool or that rendering style as they need it.

And it goes back to, you know, what I was saying before about any really good artist can paint any way they want when they want, but they choose to render things a certain way. Well, there's like, like in this image right here, there's UFO in those buffaloes. That's really it. It's sort of a lot, but what does it mean to you? Why do you deal with it? Well, I've always been interested in UFOs and paranormal activity and anything cryptozoological. And oftentimes those interests intersect in my paintings. But sometimes, you know, for a long time, I resisted doing it until I had one show where I, that was a title of the show, it was called Big Foot. Big Foot, something like Loch Ness Monster and other oddities or something like that. And you know, people were really into it. They really liked it. And I got a lot of feedback from it. And for me, it was just, it was a risk doing something that wasn't about, you know,

shamanism or being one with the earth or sacred this or that. It was just about something that I was interested in. I thought it was cool. And I was, you know, lucky that other people are interested in it too. But to answer your question, if I use symbols, I absolutely use images as charged symbols. I often will choose something that already has a built in context to it for a lot of different reasons. And I know why I make stuff. But, you know, it ultimately is up to the viewer to sort of finish the painting as far as what they bring to it as far as their emotional experience, their life experience and their tastes and art will affect how they perceive it. But what does it mean to you? Well, like why is there, like, there's, to me, it seemed like the UFO could be so many different things that I'm interested in when it's chasing Buffalo. Wow. Is it really chasing them though?

Yeah, no, it's, it's, I like those paintings because they could be 500 years in the future or a thousand years in the past, you know. It's Buffalo's, the Buffalo Field series started out as the Buffalo being a witness to history in North America, past, present, and future. So they started out, the Buffalo Field started out as an allegory for North American history. And these recent paintings, I would say in the last 10 years, have all become kinetic instead of, instead of like landscape-esque renderings of a serene Buffalo Field, they've become these beast charging towards you with something behind them. And that's very much how I feel about our life, the world, we're moving, we're moving forward allegedly. But everybody moves at such a frenetic pace these days that we're all moving. We're all on our way somewhere to do something.

But yeah, but is it really important? Is it going to make any difference in 500 years? So it's just kind of, I guess they're sort of minimalist allegories about life and, yeah. I just want them, you know, I want people, in general, and maybe art historians are curators, or just a bunch of people. I just want them, you know, I want people in general, and maybe art historians are curators. Or just anybody that's interested in thinking about collecting art, to think about contemporary native art in a different way, and to not have a beginning and ending to that because it is everything and anything.

And it's not limited, it's only limited by your perception. And there are a lot of artists, younger artists working today that aren't limited by the same things that I was limited by. And so that's exciting for me to see, because, you know, some of them can paint stuff and never will enter their mind, is this Native American looking enough? Is this too Native American looking? To them, it's all the same. It's like, you know, they could, they could paint a break dancer, somebody doing hip-hop, right alongside of a traditional portrait of their mother or sister. And they're in their regalia, and it's all the same. So, you know, my major issue is what the buying market has defined as contemporary native art was so uninteresting and inaccurate to my experience that I had to make work that talked about what I was going through, or what I'm going through as a contemporary art.

Artists at the beginning of the 21st century. Why is that important? Like, if you could say why that's important to me. I'm still figuring out why it's important. Like, I definitely, you know, I never, one of my favorite sayings is never mistake activity for accomplishment. Saying it with a straight face doesn't make it true either, but I think it's important because it's about dignity. I'm not letting people define what my art is. You're leaving people with something. Yeah. What is that?

We'll see. I have no idea. Honestly, I don't. It's like, I would like to say I've had a five-year plan over my career, but I don't. Right? Things just kind of happen one right after another. So, why is it important to leave something that you feel like is that? I think it's important for me to leave something for people to think about because I was fortunate enough to receive that from the artists that are working before me. The artists like, you know, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, T.C. Cannon, Fritz Schilder, they all pushed a little farther.

Like, just imagine a envelope sitting on the table, came along, just moved it just a little bit. So, in the breadth of a career or a lifetime, or many lifetimes, there are certain artists that are credited with coming along and pushing the envelope further along just a little bit. And I'm very much appreciate any artist that makes the sacrifice or dares to think they could even do that. I don't necessarily think I'm able to do that yet, I hope to do that, but I've never wanted to put the cart before the horse. So, I feel like I'm still in the process of establishing a career that might do that.

I hope that will do that, but that's not for me to say. I kind of understand me. Okay, I think we can put the interview. The way that I wanted it, it's always some sort of weird, crazy, unusual, back channel that stuff happens. When you notice it's not perfect though, there's no such thing. You know what, things don't fall in like the after school special like you wanted to, probably like really early. But professionally, I was asking my father, when I was in college, do things get easier when you get older? I mean, art wise, life wise, and he's like, no. But I appreciate it as honesty, but I also wanted to hear something else. Basically, what he said was more money, more problems, but that's true.

But for me, art is easy. Life is hard. Being human is hard. Pushing pain on the canvas. That's easy. Well, that's, you know, I'm still figuring that out. I'm always skeptical of people that know what they do, know what they make, know what their style is. It's like, I'm kind of, I'm skeptical of that. Is it really your style or what you want to make, or is it, are you being conditioned by the bell ringing that is money? Is that really what you want to make, or is this really just what people want to pay you for? But, you know, I wouldn't use that part. I would use part of what you say something about you following the thing that has that integrity that you're talking about. Like you want to be on a stand.

I mean, I have to be, I mean, I like to sleep at night. And if you're, yeah, cool. All right, well, let's cut it. All right, go ahead. Ready. Ready. Can you come back to the paint, please?

You all just a second. Ready. Ready. Okay, hold on.

So this is all basically underpainting layer, because there's a darker color underneath, so this is all going to be solid blue at some point. But now it's just the initial base color. So it might not be that interesting right now. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. So it's about the camera. It's about the difference or the sameness of experiencing the same event through a camera or other devices.

But, you know, growing up, it's like everyone, every local TV station had eyewitness news, and I just use that instead of spelling it out, EYE, I used I, and so the iPhone, I know. I used to be a Android man, but because everybody else in the house had an iPhone and everything was compatible, so I went to the dark side. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Splash down.

Okay. I think I'm going to augment the design a little bit and just do those wartime hand painted graphics. There's not enough surface area for these to be pin-ups to have pin-ups on them, but they can definitely have the shark faces or fun little graphics on them. The most of the ones I've seen have just been painted with camouflage.

I've seen one or two that have had those giant eyes and mouth full of teeth on them. I just think it would make a good painting to have a bunch of these flying information, because you don't usually see them that way. You see them by themselves, taking off and landing. What do you think about the juxtaposition of documentation and commentary, because nobody is going to actually share the drone? I bet you they would. It came around. I wouldn't do anything to it, but I'm almost positive if given the chance, somebody definitely would. We don't even bomb people face to face anymore. We just send drones over.

Some dude in the locker where the joy stick is killing somebody 5,000 miles away. Which we used to have the decency to kill somebody to their face relatively.