And I think the the idea of come from your total experience and new paint can come from from nature, from your environment or whatever you're interested in a particular time.

The process of being a visual artist is that I have to figure out how to do it in a visual language.

First musician I'd have to know how to do it in music, you know?

But I just have to be a visual artist.

And that's what visual art tends to do.

It doesn't matter how you intellectualize something, you can't do it.

Basically.

It's quite.

You know, doesn’t mean anything.

My name is DJ Lafon, and I'm an artist.

I think I tend to work with, characters or people, as opposed to being a landscape painter or portrait painter or something more specific.

I'm interested in the political situation, the strange, funny things that people do, the way they appear to me, at least in my imagination.

And looking back on my work, I do something besides people.

But, the majority of it, probably 90% of it has to do with, with people.

And sometimes objects are inserted into it like, like birds or windmills or whatever to kind of add, a somewhat of a narrative value, sometimes a little bit of satirical.

Back to the idea that the images of that, that are in the painting itself.

I've been been involved in the arts that it's almost practically and in full time way probably since I was about 16.

So, so it's, it's been about 50 years.

60 years really have been more accurate on that particular thing.

So.

I have handled D.J.

's work since I opened this gallery.

And so that's been, about 3 or 4 years now.

Before that, I was aware of him.

I owned his work, but not until I had this gallery did I start selling his work.

I think DJ has appeal on several levels, and.

And one of the primary levels is certainly intellectual level.

His paintings are, well thought out, well conceived, and extremely original in concept.

I would say probably.

Interpreted or maybe dynamic in a sense.

And I wanted to go beyond realism.

The kind of kind of based upon real things.

I mean.

You can't distort the figure too much or it's not a figure anymore.

Okay?

So you can't go limited in that sense.

I've never known an artist that works quite as hard and long and is so committed to to his art as him.

I envy that.

I do a lot of sketches.

May take a an hour or two in the evening, and, and, and do 2 or 3 pages in a sketchbook or.

Oh, what really, really is the most, invigorating thing for me is, it's not necessarily the painting itself.

It's, it's the planning.

It's the thought, the the sketches, the drawings, the research.

If you have to do it.

I like all of that part.

And sometimes the painting, when you finally get to it, except for the, the physical part of the painting is, it kind of mundane.

I like the I like working out the idea, I think my sketchbooks and my piles of paper.

There are probably hundreds of ideas there for painting.

I think that when viewers look at his work, they're aware of his skill.

We don't have an artist in Oklahoma who is more skilled, can work in any medium with total ease and control.

And so they're they're aware of the craftsmanship, I think, at some level.

But the other level, I think is the intellectual appeal.

And they realize that it's an intelligent painting.

And, and it requires of the viewer, I think, some thought on their part to receive it.

Well, this is 27 paintings by D.J.

Lefon that, all represent people, other artists, musicians, writers who have influenced him in his life.

And I should mention the thing that really interested me, even about composers or writers or anything else, is how did they do it?

Why did they make this decision?

I don't, I'd listen to a piece of music.

I might find myself almost immediately saying, well, why did the horn come in there?

Why?

What's the what's the rhythmic chain?

What's this about?

Why why are you to compose the thing?

That's why, you know, rather than this listening to the music, I asked him if there was something he had always wanted to exhibit, but never had a show.

And he said he had always wanted to do a show of people that had influenced his life, but he didn't know how commercial it would be.

And I said, well, don't worry about that.

Do it.

I enjoy the, the whole thought process behind the whole show as a series, the whole idea of portraying the people that he admires and trying to capture what they did in his recreation of them.

I think it draws your interest in and kind of engages the viewer and also the bright colors will also gain some of your attention as you're passing by.

And that just makes you want to look at it.

Well, you know, it's funny when I stand in front of the art chrome piece, but kind of cartoonish, you know, a little bit of, surrealism.

I think in some of the pieces, kind of, a fun balance between, you know, some of the pieces are kind of sad and serious, but there's still humor in them at the same time.

I taught art, or tried to teach art for, approximately 25 years.

I came to, to Oklahoma in, 1964 as, department chairman down at East Central in a but he was focused on teaching, more than he was focused on selling his art.

He was focused on bringing on new generations.

And I always tried to work on my own stuff whenever I had time.

So my office was full of stuff.

I was doing things.

And the justification for this is probably that that's what I thought you ought to be teaching these students, let's say, art his work.

You work all the time, you know, and I've had a lot of people tell me that, you know, your work influenced me.

I can't I don't see that in their own work.

Necessarily.

Some of them I do some of the the students I've had or, people that I've known.

Well have been influenced.

Or again, they say they have.

And, I'm always surprised by bit when I hear that, that, you have an influential in some sort of way.

So it's not intentional.

I, I'm always just very surprised by it.

He's very strong in in what he cares for.

I guess that's what I would want people to know.

He he is he really.

It's not verbal.

He cares.

And and, I think we need more people, artists and others like that.

Well, I think he's inspired hundreds of artists over the years.

He may be considered in some way an artist’s artist because artists come in here to look at his work, and they are just kind of in awe.

And they say, I wish I could do that.

He, is being placed in museums now.

And so I think the public at large, will become more and more aware of him.

And as I said, it's my belief that his reputation will continue to grow long after he's gone.

I think it is a lifelong journey.

You're always learning something new and always responding to something that's coming along.

Now, I don't mean by that necessarily in the art world.

In the whole world, you know, here, though, every all your influences are coming in and you, you hope that you're, still responsive to learning anything.

And I think that part of the artist’s job I had the ability and I don't know why.

I don't know how.

I'm not exceptionally talented or not, you know, or anything else.

I just work hard.