This professional photograph of David was taken when he was a child living with his foster mother.
The teachers at the Indian School in Santa Fe wanted me to do traditional Indian subjects. I rebelled. I didn't want to sketch horses or Indians. Dorothy Dunn had worked with the kids, encouraging them to draw familiar Indian images and helped to develop a "traditional Indian" style.
I went from drawing pictographs to wild flowers. The teachers thought I was a failure because in their eyes, Indians did not paint wild flowers. I had a great dream of doing a book of wild flowers. An old German woman gave me a sketch book. I filled it with drawings of flowers. One of the teachers at the Indian School found it and burned it. I had to stand in front of the dining hall, holding a cannon ball in my hand as punishment for drawing wild flowers.