After discovering calligraphy and perfecting her lettering skills, Patty Hammarstedt left a rewarding nursing career to embrace her lifework as an artist. This unexpected path has proven to be a most fulfilling reinvention.
Patty has employed her calligraphic technique in book art and paintings, working with a diversity of mediums, as a means to create visual communication. She has utilized inks, acrylics, oils and watercolors and has incorporated photography, Sumi brush painting and collage.
Patty’s art has been juried and exhibited in numerous galleries and resides in private and permanent collections. Her calligraphic designs have served as logos and titles for books and motion pictures.
Related organizational memberships and serving on board positions within those organizations have become a fulfilling part of Patty’s art evolution sustain her active involvement in the art community.
Artist Statement
Years ago quite by accident, I found myself in a calligraphy class rather than the Sumi brush painting class I’d registered for. Intrigued with the beauty of calligraphic forms presented by the instructor, I decided to stay and learn. With time, I began perfecting my calligraphic letterforms.
The more perfect my letterforms became, however, the less I felt they expressed the emotion of my texts. So I deviated from my structured training, abstracting and distorting calligraphic letters into textural elements within imagery evoked by a mood, a thought, a poem, a song, or an event. I like to draw the viewer in slowly to discover obscured texts, to examine them, and then to contemplate what they really say. I want this to lead the viewer to determine not what the texts mean literally or even what they mean to me as the artist, but what the texts offer the viewer in their visual distortion and imagery.
I employ this calligraphic technique in book art and paintings, working in a variety of mediums, using words from others or my own. I believe I am communicating more naturally this way, creating visual conversation by intertwining words and imagery and allowing each to overpower the other as in life’s speechless or articulate moments.
