How to Master the Art of Calligraphy

Joanne Wasserman has been professionally engaged in original art, custom art services, and graphic design since 1979, when she opened Wasserman Design in Washington, DC, as a studio business. Joanne was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design

Calligraphy, drawing, painting, and graphic design are bedrock art realms that Wasserman uses interchangeably to explore diverse subjects material and create original formations of content and imagery. Her intention for every work of art is the same: to communicate what is most intensely meaningful about the circumstances which shape a subject's identity.

Over the years, Wasserman has produced a singular body of works for business clients and individuals whose interests are focused on serious issues of life in today's world. Her testimonial art honors statesmen and leaders for their career achievements and dedication to public service.

Recently, two exemplary works of calligraphy and illumination were composed for Senator John Warner, of Virginia, and Former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Atlantic Council of the United States commissioned both of these works of art.

Wasserman's mural painting for the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing is a visual tribute to the school's educational mission across the entire field of nursing practice; the mural was named after an alumnus: The Leona Bowman Carpenter Center for Community Health Nursing.

Other works include several drawings and watercolors that were made to express the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation's advocacy on behalf of all countries in which landmines have been used against innocent civilians, causing the destruction of lives, homelands and national economies.

Wasserman's interests in current events, American history, and the development of writing systems and art traditions of peoples throughout the world are frequent catalysts for her choice of topics; moreover, through her work she cares to express the endearing aspects of living that are all around us.

Change Agents of Culture is an ongoing series of 27 works that address creativity and invention in American society from the late 19th through 20th centuries. The first seventeen of these calligraphy-paintings were exhibited at the Embassy of Japan's Information and Culture Center, in Washington, DC, where the artist gave a public talk about writing systems in the world, entitled, "Picture Writing Then & Now".