I am a fine artist with web design experience. And technology leadership experience. A creative-techno-artist-geek so to speak.

I went looking for a pre-made template for my own artist portfolio website to make the process faster and easier. But I couldn’t find anything that worked for me.

I knew I wanted simple and unobtrusive. White background and dark text. Something that looked gallery-like and wouldn’t compete with my artwork for attention. That I could find.

But I was also looking for a gallery page that would show full pieces in all their varying dimensions. And show the larger pieces as larger than the smaller pieces. I wanted to give my viewers a clue. Let them know what to expect when they finally see the work in person. I don’t want to mislead. As an artist, I know that the impact of the same image at different sizes can be huge (pun intended) and that we intentionally choose the size and proportions for our pieces because size and proportion are as much an integral part of the piece as the shapes and hues, and subject matter and lines and values and textures and …. everything else that together synergizes our work.

So I bit the bullet and took the time to create a gallery site for myself.

Then I thought, why not share it with other artists?

After all, as artists, we often utilize the same physical gallery space and that doesn’t detract from the uniqueness of our art. Just because your site structure is similar to my site structure doesn’t mean our sites will impact the viewers in the same way. It’s our art that makes the difference.