Naomi Burnham recognized something special happening with Michelle’s puzzle
practice. Many who work in the office at Cornerstone Associates, Inc have received a
puzzle from Michelle as a gift. They are scenes of farm life and flowers, fruit baskets
and cottages, and they are chosen based on the person being gifted the puzzle, whom
Michelle thinks will like the picture. Michelle chooses each puzzle for its image and
style and then glues the board together so that it becomes something more like a
permanent work of art. She has a large collection of completed and glued puzzles.
Early versions of cut piece puzzles (pre-jigsaw) made of wood date back to the 1700s.
The jigsaw puzzle in a box as we know it came about during the Great Depression. The
next surge of puzzle building happened during the Covid-19 pandemic when most of
us had no choice but to find ways to occupy our time at home. There are many ways to
share a puzzle. Working together, passing it on once completed, going to a puzzle
swap, or giving a new box to a loved one are a few. Michelle though, does not share
puzzles, but gives away and displays the images she has put together. And she gives
away as many of her completed puzzles as she keeps.
We often think of puzzles as temporary, something that when finished, we disassemble
and return to a box. The slow work of putting the puzzle together and the satisfaction
of placing the last piece is what many seek. Working on a puzzle is calming, meditative,
stimulating, rewarding, and restorative. Puzzles are used in community rooms,
therapeutic settings, and break rooms. They can be communal or personal. Working on
a puzzle may very well include all of these things for Michelle, but what she identifies
with most, she says, is her handiwork, because “a puzzle is a picture.”
Rick Rubin writes in The Creative Act: A Way of Being, that “to create is to bring
something into existence that wasn’t there before. It could be a conversation, the
solution to a problem, a note to a friend….Regardless of whether or not we’re formally
making ‘art,’ we are all living as artists.” What stands out to me, and perhaps to Naomi,
is that the pieces of a puzzle seem to be a scattered image that Michelle is compelled
to make whole again.
Sometimes Michelle will begin and complete a puzzle in one sitting. An artist is
someone who shares who they are and how they see the world. An artwork is
considered finished when we see the whole instead of the pieces. We make art
because we are moved by the human need to create, express, and embellish. Puzzles
also have the benefit of boosting brain and cognitive function, including mood and
focus, though Michelle insists that she just likes the pictures that emerge at the end,
and wants to keep them whole.
We hope this inspires you to sit down and relax at the table with a puzzle.
Jill Baker, Living Studios, September 2026