As a calligrapher, the more perfect my letterforms became, the less I felt they expressed the emotion of the texts I wrote. So, I have deviated from the perfected letters of my structured training, abstracting and distorting calligraphic letters into textural elements within imagery evoked by a mood, a thought, a poem, a quote, an event. I like to slowly draw the viewer in close to discover obscured texts, to examine them, and then to wonder what they say. I want this scrutiny to lead the viewer to decide not what the words mean literally or what they mean to me as the artist, but what the words mean to them in the context of the visual imagery in which they were hidden. I believe I am communicating more clearly this way, intertwining words and imagery allowing each to overpower the other off and on as in life’s speechless or articulate moments. I employ this technique in book art and paintings, working large and small, in a variety of mediums, using words from others or self-written — but words are always there.


Patty Hammarstedt
Bird On A Limb Studio

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