The Birth of a Creative Mind (To Think, To Dream, To Create)

The idea for this painting came from a quote in a book I read by Louis L'Amour.  In the book it talks about life in the early west and how difficult the day-to-day living was.  It speaks about how rare leisure time was and how their leisure was bought from hardship.  It also notes the complexities of travel and the reality that if you had the luxury of being able to bring books west, they would of necessity be the best books as space was limited.  And so this hard-won leisure was spent with these books.  These books opened a world to these otherwise isolated individuals and allowed them "to think, to dream and to create".  This painting was led by the concept of the power of reading, the power of spending free time in expanding our minds by thinking, dreaming and creating.