“My name is Jane Mount, and I started Ideal Bookshelf in 2008. I believe books make us better, allowing us to visit other people's lives and understand them. And books connect us, to characters, to authors, and, most importantly, to each other.

“I started painting my books, and then my friends’ books just as they lay on their shelves, but I soon realized it was much more interesting to ask them what books they loved, which books made them who they are today.

“That’s when I started Ideal Bookshelf, and began doing custom pieces for people, painting portraits of them from the inside instead of the outside. I find it endlessly fascinating to see what books people pick, and while painting or making a print I think all about what that person might be like, based on their choices.”