"Some people take one look at Native American artist Bobby Wilson's long, braided hair and start treating him like he just stepped out of a 19th-century Edward Curtis photo.

"People act like I don't keep up with the times," said Wilson, of Minneapolis. "They want to tell me about a sweat lodge they went to once or they got to see a powwow one time and it was so beautiful. And you can't shake people who are romantic about Indians from being romantic about Indians."

The term American Indian art often evokes images of beads and buckskin — and that can be a challenge for contemporary American Indian artists, whose work has nothing to do with quills or birch bark.

"[People's assumptions are] always going to be the beautiful culture or the peaceful, loving Indians who are stewards of the land," he said. "Whatever.""

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For the modern Indian artist, traditions loom large (Minnesota Public Radio 12/12)