Ever looked at a portrait and wanted to know more about the individual immortalized in a work of art? In this new monthly feature we will get to know the muses for visual artists. Last week we introduced you to the interactive paintings of Thomas “Detour” Evans. This week, we introduce you to one of his muses, DJ Cavem.

DJ Cavem (Communicating Awareness Victoriously Educating the Masses)

Age: 29

Residence: Denver, CO

Occupation: O.G. (organic gardener), founder of Eco-HIPHOP, educator, speaker, DJ, producer, emcee, midwife, high school teacher and composer.

Is it true that this portrait of you came about without you actually modeling for it?

I knew Detour would do a portrait but I didn’t know how or when. It was something we talked about for almost a year. We shot two videos in the process of this and in the middle of this time he was shooting footage of me in my classrooms. I had no idea the outcome would be this painting.

What was your reaction when you first saw the portrait?

At the time I had just lost my grandmother to diabetes and I had a performance at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the first time in front of 20,000 people at an event hosted by Vivica A. Fox. I was able to upload my song “Cool to Live” to the painting, which is dedicated to my elders dying from food related illnesses. So I felt like the painting was important because it was using art to capture the attention of people.

They say that students have short attention spans. Do you think your students would be captivated by this work?

Yes. It reminds me of those books that play music for kids. Detour has hit a market for adults who like pop-up books.