From the artist: Just as  I gather imagery and text from found papers, magazines, and discarded books, I also gather snippets conceptually from literature, cinema, pop culture, religion, mythology, travel, nature, art history, social media, couture, and more. There is great joy in juxtaposition for me, finding unexpected placements and matches that strike a chord aesthetically or emotionally. Art is many things, and sometimes it is fantasy, an escape into imaginary places. Just as children play at dolls and trucks to work out real world details in play, art can equip us to navigate our lives by helping to resolve the endless what-ifs, by creating beauty during ashes or tackling our terror in order to tame it.

Lorette C. Luzajic is a Toronto based writer who studied journalism but loves poetry and small fictions. Her work has been published widely and internationally, and nominated several times each for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She recently won first place in a flash fiction contest at MacQueen’s Quinterly. Her work has been translated into Urdu. Her most recent book Pretty Time Machine is a collection of ekphrastic prose poems. Lorette is also the editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a journal devoted to writing inspired by art. She is also an award-winning visual artist whose collage paintings have been collected in over 25 countries. Visit her at www.mixedupmedia.ca.