The relationship between writers and artists has long been a collaborative one. Plato used the word ekphrasis to describe what happens when a writer writes creatively, as opposed to critically, about art. Gertrude Stein claimed that her innovative writing style was inspired by the paintings of Cezanne – and then went on to tell Hemingway to study Cezanne if he wanted to learn to write.

In Looking Together, a dozen writers working in a range of styles and forms respond to works of art held in the permanent collection of Seattle’s Frye Art Museum or exhibited there. Romantic and ironic, meticulously researched and fanciful, these poems, stories, monologues, and tales are invitations to any curious reader or lover of art to look again at what we see.

Sometimes what artists want to explore is something created by another artist. Making art about something created by another human being is a way to engage intimately with how another human being believes or sees or feels or thinks or wants. It can also be really fun. – From the Introduction by Rebecca Brown