A Wee Bit About Celtic Art and Why Linda Loves it So Much 

A friend of mine had a book filled with these really cool designs. When he lent it to me I told him he may not get it back. I wasn't lying. I think I may still have it!

Courtney Davis and Archibald Knox were inspired by the earliest People known as Celts. They lived across Europe from Hungary in the East to Ireland in the West, dipping south into Spain and north to the Baltic Seas. As the Roman Empire expanded it fought to conquer and replace it with Roman culture and art. The Celtic way of life was removed from continental Europe over the centuries. They tried conquering Ireland many times, but failed. They built Hadrian's Wall to keep the Scots out of their empire because they failed to convert Scotland too.

This undying spirit survives not only through their ancestors, but in the surviving art, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels from the middle ages and The Book of Kells from around 563 A.D. Spirals carved in rocks were left all over Europe throughout the ages and celtic crosses found in gravestones in the British Isles still serve to inspire. One can't leave out Stone Henge, or the numerous stone circles found on the grassy hills of the UK.

Today's Celtic art is born of the spirit of these ancient societies. I base my knot work designs on the same principles today. It was once forbidden to make realistic pictures of God's work. It's theorized that they used symbols based in geometry, mathematics and abstraction for exageration. I have read that knotwork was created to confuse evil and that the repetition of a design was done to increase it's power. If you look closely, most knot work designs are never-ending, representing the true nature of life and it's cycles. This is what draws me to Celtic art. It's complex simplicity. It's purity of shape and form. It's spirit.