LORETTE LUZAJIC – Friday Night Guest – February 28, 2025
(Submitted by Chris Luna)
Lorette C. Luzajic is an award-winning mixed media and collage artist who has lived in Toronto for 30 years. She is also a writer who founded The Ekphrastic Review, the flagship journal of literature inspired by visual art.
Lorette started her presentation with a brief talk on the history of collage that dates back to Medieval Europe during the 13th century. She showed slides of various examples and of more contemporary artists who have created works in this medium, including Picasso and Georges Braque. Following this, Lorette talked about her own evolution to creating collage. She had not planned on being a visual artist but wrote for online art journals, articles and poetry. Always interested in written language she started incorporating her poetry and words into experimental collages. The turning point for her came in 1990 when she created a series of Tarot cards in collage. More surreal, abstract work followed and in 2015 her collages were used in ad campaigns, as well as for book covers.
Lorette then did a demonstration where she did a quick sample of placing words on paper. Then on to creating one full collage from an idea of “animal crackers” as inspiration. Some of the materials she uses are clippings from magazines, words and images from old books, stencils, colored pencils, pastels, acrylic paint, and more. She favors using glue sticks and, for heavier pieces, she uses Weld Bond. Other fixatives are Mod Podge, Matte Glossing mediums, YES Glue (expensive!). Tip: buy a packet of a variety of sponges on sticks to get rid of air bubbles from glued down pieces. On her canvas demo she gessos the surface first. Fiskar scissors are her favorite but she does have many different sizes for cutting large and small images. Composition and color are integral in the design and Lorette adheres to the Rule of thirds in her creations.
Thank you Lorette for a very interesting and informative presentation.
Visit her at:www.mixedupmedia.ca.
https://www.instagram.com/lorette.c.luzajic
