Jigsaws and my Creative Process
How assembling jigsaw puzzles reflects my approach to tackling my projects
In order not to make this site all about GenAI, here’s a more analogue reflection on the creative process.
It’s difficult to come up with titles for these posts. I want to make them sound “good”, but I also want them to tell you about what’s going to be in them. So the title of this piece could have been: I’ve noticed that the way in which I tackle jigsaw puzzles is similar to how I approach my artistic projects, so I thought I’d share it with you.
Because it’s true.
As I start putting a jigsaw together, I go through chaos and order (or divergent and convergent processes) in a similar way to how I deal with trying to juggle the many things I’d like to do.
Let me tell your first about the kind of puzzles I like doing. My favourite jigsaw artist is Jan van Haasteren, a Dutch artist. (It’s by coincidence he’s Dutch, like my husband. I think I first discovered him in WH Smith, and then was delighted to see a small shop in Amsterdam full of his work.)
His puzzles are packed with cartoon people, and often feature some kind of crowd. They’re also quirky, almost subversive, and in some cases, not very PC. I often laugh putting them together. And they have recurring elements: look out for a shark’s fin, an eyeball on a spring, a paper aeroplane, a woman in a low-cut top and a Sinterklaas, the figure who brings Dutch children presents on the 5th of December.
The other jigsaws I like are the WASJIG puzzles, where the image you have to put together is not the one on the box. Instead, you have to use your imagination to come up with what one person on the image box is seeing on the other side of “the camera”, for example. Or, in the case of the one I’m doing now, what happens next to the people on the drawing.
It’s an exercise in patience and it requires a more detailed look at the jigsaw pieces, like looking at the different kinds of “brush strokes” to figure out what goes where.
When putting together traditional jigsaws, I used to refer back to the picture on the box often. Since tackling the WASKJIGs, I now prefer to put together the puzzles “blind”, trying to figure out what goes where, and seeing the picture emerge. Knowing the “safety net” of the reference picture is close by…
The Jigsaw Building Process
There’s nothing amazingly special about how I put together my jigsaws. Like most people (does anyone do it differently?), I first look for all the pieces with a flat edge and create the border.
Then I see what part of the jigsaw emerges next by “burrowing” through the mountain of pieces in the box. Sometimes I’m lucky and I find a large piece I can work on, like here.
But more often than not, I end up with something like this:
The reason is that, as I dig around for, eg blue and white pieces for the water section on the left, I also find lots of red and yellow striped ones, so I gather those too. And then I notice that there are pink ones with similar brushwork, and start picking those out. I also like to pick out faces when I see them, as they make the whole thing more fun.
At some point though, it becomes too much. That’s where I’m at now with this WASJIG. Everything is drawing my attention. I’m curious about what each section will morph into. But it’s driving me mad to see incomplete pieces which I can’t complete because I’m missing one or two pieces.
So I decided to forget about the section with the water, because it was doing my head in, and I’m not good at landscape-type jigsaws. I put the blue and white pieces in a bag to make some space. And I concentrated on finding the connections between the different sections, so that I could start placing them in the right place on the board.
I still have a long way to go, but I’m not overwhelmed. (Oh how I’m grateful for this easy life where this is what constitutes “overwhelming” for me!)
My Approach to Creative Project
This kind of pattern (diverge, converge and repeat) is common when you’re working on creating something from scratch. You look for a structure, then you go wild with possibilities and at some point, you start to discard certain bits and focus on others, while seeing how your different ideas can come together.
It’s also the way I tackle my projects, or should I say my creative life.
I’m a multi-passionate, or multi-curious, or any other multi-word you want to come-up-with creator.
This means I’m never bored, especially in this day and age where even if you’re not talented in one area, you can get better at it with the use of technology.
But every time I decide I’m going to focus on one project (usually a book), I get all structured about my approach for it and then wham! - something else draws my attention.
I feel like I can take that on too and so I start it.
Then something else comes along, and something else.
And these are all internal somethings - every now and then an external one comes my way which I can’t say no to!
So I start all of them.
At the same time.
And at some point, something has to give.
That’s really difficult.
I’m still struggling with that.
I’ve tried to tackle it by addressing different projects on different days, or at different times of the day. It’s kind of being left with a jigsaw of half-completed parts, but at least they all have their space on the board.
I’ve tried to be “focused”, to dedicate my days to ONE (or even two) things.
But I can’t.
And that’s ok. It’s who I am.
Now I’m looking forward to the weekend, so I can finish my jigsaw!