This is where it all started, for me; not everything, I mean, but this is the first way I hoped to sell my artwork through the World Wide Web.
In the late 1990's I was doing plenty of artwork with digital tools. Although it had been ten years or more since I'd been a painter it still bothered me that I no longer had originals. The work I did now seemed ephemeral when I compared it with the solid reality of the paintings I used to make.
It took a few more years to find a way to offer these prints. They've joined all my other merchandise now and I'm very happy that they're here.
are priced slightly higher.
This is an expanded version of an earlier piece (Triskelion Mandala I).
Once I’d lived with the first one for awhile I kept on picturing it in different ways, as a decorative cover on an illuminated manuscript, or as a carpet design, a bedspread, or a door. And when I looked at it that way I wanted it to be contained by an overall framework, as the central panel in a more rigid design - as though it were one of those objects I’d been picturing it on.
This print is a 300 dpi printed copy of my digital painting. It’s 20 by 24 inches in size, including a solid color "matte" border - that means that you could frame it as is, or of course you could have it matted and framed, as you like.
The central design is a very ancient one called a "Triskelion" - a three-armed spiral. During the Middle Ages a variation on this pattern was adopted as the symbol of the Isle of Man, which lies between Britain and Ireland in the middle of the Irish Sea. The island was of tremendous strategic importance in those days, since a navy based there could dominate the passage between those two islands. These days it mainly seems to be a nice place to take a vacation.
Surrounding the triskelion are a variety of spiral patterns, fretwork, gripping beasts, and knotwork borders in an overall design that recalls a piece of jewelry.