By all accounts, the first jigsaw puzzle was made in 1760 by a British engraver and mapmaker named John Spilsbury. He mounted a map on a piece of hardwood and cut around the borders of each country with a marquetry saw. The end product was designed to help children learn geography.
Until the 1820s, puzzles were chiefly educational tools, the American Jigsaw Puzzle Society says. At first called "dissections," they eventually became known as
jigsaw puzzles (although they were actually cut with a fretsaw) and evolved into a popular form of entertainment.
By the early 1900s, both wooden and cardboard versions were manufactured. Early puzzles were made for children, but by the 1920s and '30s, more difficult cuttings were designed to appeal to adults. Jigsaw puzzles were particularly popular during the Great Depression as a lasting, inexpensive form of amusement and were even used as an advertising premium.
Jigsaw puzzles have held their own ever since. Maps, illustrations, scenic pictures, fine art and pretty much anything else has been used to create puzzles.
Quite naturally, folk artist Eric Dowdle thinks that folk art makes the very best puzzles. "They have the most variety, the most stories," he says.
Following folk artists such as the late Charles Wysocki ("I'm not ashamed to say he has been a huge influence on me"), Dowdle started a line of puzzles almost as soon as he started painting. "Other artists used to tease me about that, but I told them it was my recession-proof product. That has proved to be true."
As the economy has gone south, and people have been buying less artwork, puzzles are still doing well. "They are still an inexpensive form of entertainment and interaction," he says.
In fact, Dowdle recently sold his one-millionth puzzle, and threw a party at his Lindon offices for all his puzzle fans.
He now has 85 puzzle titles, everything from his popular cityscapes (places from Salt Lake City and St. George to Boston, San Diego, London, Paris and Boise) to baseball stadiums, to events such as Christmas, Halloween, rodeos, balloon festivals. Most are of the 500-piece variety, although there are some 1,000-piece puzzles and a lot of 50- and 100-piece puzzles for kids.
"We currently have 47 semi-trucks filled with puzzles ready to go out to Costco," which is one of his major distributors, he says. The puzzles can also be found in Walmart and other places. "The way things are going, we'll probably sell our two-millionth puzzle by next fall," he says.
Learning how puzzles are made has been an interesting experience, Dowdle says. "Ten or 12 years ago, when I was first thinking about puzzles, I visited a factory." It was fascinating to see how the picture is adhered to the board, how machines clamp, cut, break the puzzles into pieces and send them down the chute into the bag and box.
"But as I walked through the factory, there were puzzle pieces everywhere on the floor. Oh, they said, occasionally one gets knocked out. I decided that if I went to making puzzles, I'd need a place with a clean floor. Nothing is more aggravating than having a missing piece; 999 out of 1,000 is not acceptable. So, you won't see any pieces on the floor here."
Puzzles are a lot of fun, he says. The challenge of putting them together is good for the brain. "Actually using your hands in this digital age preserves motor skills that are being lost. And for $10 or so, you can have three to five hours (depending how good and how fast you are) of interaction with kids or friends. They let you sit down, relax, unwind, unplug the world."
And, he adds, you can do it over and over again. Although, these days, it is also popular to turn the finished puzzle into art and hang it on the wall. Special glue and kits are available to bond all the pieces together.
But, Dowdle admits, not everyone gets puzzles, especially in some of the foreign countries he has visited. His favorite puzzle story happened on a trip to Kenya with Quiet Way, a Lindon-based charity working in Africa.
They were meeting with some high-ranking government officials, including the country's vice president. So, Dowdle had a special wooden puzzle made featuring his Noah's Ark print.
"When we gave it to the vice president, he looked at it, and then said, 'Oh, your beautiful painting has been broken. I must speak to our customs officials.' He had never seen a puzzle before. We explained what it was, but he still didn't quite see the point of cutting a picture apart just so you could put it back together."
But on that same trip, Dowdle took some puzzles to some of the schools. The children there had not seen puzzles before, either. "But to see their excitement, to see the joy, the self-esteem, the mini-successes that came from just fitting the pieces together, that was priceless," he says.
And that's what puzzles do for kids here, he says. "They teach math skills, educational skills and self-esteem."
Puzzles are not all that Dowdle is doing these days. He's still painting new cityscapes. His most recent paintings involve Niagara Falls and cities in eastern Canada, such as Quebec and Montreal. He also has Denver and Vail, Colo., on his list of upcoming projects, as well as Memphis, Nashville and New Orleans.
It is such fun doing the research for the cities. "Every place has something that makes that place great," he says. "It may be food, architecture, religious background. I try to capture as much of that as I can. I am capturing my memories but also the memories of everyone else."
He also likes to throw in quirky bits of history and culture. His Niagara Falls painting, for example, includes a woman who took her cat over the falls in a barrel back in the day — and both lived, although she never became as famous as she hoped.
Dowdle has also recently been to Kenya again, for a humanitarian/work project that involves quilts. He will have some of the quilt patterns he's painted printed on fabric. "The women there will turn them into actual quilts, as well as aprons and bags and other things." Their gratitude at having a job was overwhelming, Dowdle says. "Jobs are so hard to come by there, and they are the hardest-working women I know."
That experience as well as his puzzle-making milestone has turned his thoughts toward gratitude a lot these days, he says. "We've struggled for many years, but so many people have made this happen. I want my kids to be grateful for what they have. I want to fall to my knees, like the women of Kenya did, and say 'Thank you, thank you.' We have so much here to be grateful for."
e-mail: carma@desnews.com