February 11, 2012  How to Mount a Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle, Suggestion 2

Some of you ask for suggestions on how to best mount a wooden jigsaw puzzle - we posted one suggestion due to customer Christine Z. in the Dec 26, 2012 entry of this blog (scroll down to find).  Customer D.C. recently sent in a second suggestion, pictured below:

I cut a piece of heavy poster board, the exact size of the puzzle.  Then I
slid the puzzle on to the board and took it to Michael's framing department.
There I found a narrow, metal frame that would cover only 1/2 inch of the
border of the puzzle.  They built a tight frame and added glass.  They used
no glue, so if someone wanted to do the puzzle over again, it is possible. -D.C.

Feb 2, 2012 - Our newest puzzle: Narwhal Rain

Why is Bill Carman's "Narwhal Rain" painting so compelling? I think it's the unexpected idea of narwhals falling out of the sky, coupled with how the pedestrians seem to be thinking "Narwhal rain? Again?".

Funny how fast we get used to even amazing things. 

Speaking of one person's excitement being another's routine,  ever wonder what those 911 operators are doing when they aren't handling crises? Customer J.C. tells us:  

I work night shift for 9-1-1 and I was showing a co-worker your website, and I was showing him the next puzzle I want which is the Narwhal puzzle.  It was 03:00 am and we were arguing over whether narwhals are real.  He didn't believe it till I showed him articles by the Smithsonian and National Geographic.  He thought they were a myth, and thought the pictures were photo shopped.  Thanks for the entertainment in the wee hours!

January 7, 2012 - Dutch Pride and Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs

Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted his Netherlandish Proverbs in the 16th century, while the Netherlands was under Spanish rule. That’s right - Europe’s history is so long and convoluted that there was an even a time that the Spaniards ruled Holland. 

Art history professor Robert Baldwin argues that Bruegel's celebration of Dutch proverbs had lots to do with an emerging linguistic pride and Dutch cultural identity at a time of rising hostility toward Spanish rule. Ambitious readers can find Baldwin's full essay Language and Power in Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs (1990) online; for the less-ambitious, I’ve sampled his essay to summarize it in his own words:

“To look at Bruegel's art with its peasants and proverbs, its folklore, coarse humor, popular culture, and  lowly manner, one would hardly guess it decorated the  villas, townhouses, and palaces of mid-sixteenth-century Flemish urban elites. In patronizing, writing, and defending a Netherlandish vernacular, the Dutch elite capitalized linguistically on the growing local hostility toward Philip II's repressive government.

Gropius Becanus argued Dutch was spoken by Noah's son, Japhet, and was thus the closest modern language to the lingua adamica. In this myth, the multiplication of languages following the destruction of Babel was a linguistic Fall and an alienation of words from natural things. Redemption would thus be effected by restoring, purifying, and standardizing the vernacular.

The new Dutch was self-consciously serious, elevated, and philosophical, a language worthy of a great region and suited to the noble ideals of an urban patriciate charged with governing the cities and administering justice. Here, we see the humanist ideal of multi-leveled progress, at once linguistic, political, cultural, social, spiritual, and even scientific." 

Below: Green area shows the Habsburg empire in the 16th century

Jan 1, 2011 - Bags-to-Boxes Sale!

In response to customer feedback, we are going to start packaging our small puzzles in boxes, rather than in mesh bags. To implement this change a little faster, we need to sell our current bagged-puzzle inventory, so we'll be putting different small puzzles on sale over the next three months until the inventory runs out.

Click HERE to see what's currently on sale.

Boxes do cost more than bags. We will do our best not to pass that price increase on to you guys, but we may have to raise some prices a little. So this is partly what I call a Dutch sale -  when a company warns you right before they increase prices.    -Maya

 

Dec 26, 2011- How to Mount A Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle

We think puzzles are for re-doing, but some of you big-game-hunters out there like to mount your puzzles, and have asked what's the best way to mount a wooden jigsaw puzzle. We believe a standard wood glue (available at your local hardware store should do it).  

Customer Christine Z in PCB has another suggestion: just press your finished puzzle down on Post-it Self-stick Bulletin Board. This is very fast and simple. You can cut this bulletin board to size, and it costs around $15 on amazon.com (and possibly at your local office supplies store). 

Let us know if you try it or have another idea! (artifactpuzzles@gmail.com). 

 

Dec 23, 2011 - Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs – Even More Complex Than Meets the Eye

We include a legend in our Bruegel Netherlandish Proverbs puzzle pointing out around 50 of the proverbs Bruegel hid in the picture. Wikipedia also has a great visual legend here. Experts say there's over 100 proverbs in overlapping configurations. For example, Bruegel expert Robert Baldwin notes,

“In many instances, Bruegel overlaid up to four proverbs in a single figure.  Thus the man in the tavern window 1) pisses on the moon [wastes his efforts], 2) shows a toothache behind his ear (deception), 3) pisses outside the pot (goes against conventions) and 4) in his window appearance, seems to be "window sick not door sick", i.e. playing up his illness.  Further to the left, the fool in the tavern window 1) gets the card (fortune favors fools), 2) sits under the knife (is under the gun), and 3) shits on a world which 4) is itself topsy turvy.” 

 

 

December 17, 2011 - Puzzle Tradition - Help Remember the Good Times

Not sure all of you know, but it's a tradition with wooden jigsaw puzzles to write down who did the puzzle when on the back of the lid, or on a piece of paper kept in the box.  This turns the puzzle into a memory-node, and helps build a sense of personal history.  My mom has done this for years with an old boardgame called "Stockticker" and you can go back to the 1960's and see which friends were visiting them (and who won!), and it always makes her smile to look through it.  -Maya

December 7, 2011 - San Jose Mercury News Covers Artifact Puzzles

We were honored to be covered by Chris O'Brien in Silicon Valley's newspaper today. Click here to read the article.