I've always loved doing them, studying shapes, finding groups of colors, and puzzling out how they fit together. Early memories are vague, but somewhere along the line our family acquired a holiday tradition of having a jigsaw puzzle going in my sewing room. Then I developed rheumatoid arthritis and needed surgeries to repair wrecked joints. Nothing held my interest during recuperation better than a jigsaw puzzle. When I began to spend winters on the Gulf of Mexico -- in Galveston and Biloxi -- jigsaw puzzles helped entertain me on chilly days or evenings alone.
For this surgery I chose a puzzle made from a John Singer Sargent painting. I learned a lot about Sargent's style and technique -- his layering of color and feathery strokes. Sorry I didn't take a picture of the assembled puzzle. I passed it on to Linda, who, in turn has loaned me a Monet.
When Leslie visited, she brought on loan two antique puzzles, one of which is these colorful parrots.
Here's the thing about jigsaw puzzles: putting them together gives us a sense of accomplishment, of having solved a problem, of bringing order out of chaos. If only it were that easy to put our fractured society back together!
For the history of jigsaw puzzles, go to http://mgcpuzzle.com/mgcpuzzles/puzzle_history/
