This Guy Noticed Jigsaw Puzzle Companies Use The Same Patterns, So He Made Some Mashups

Jim Rowley

6 years ago

As far as hobbies go, jigsaw puzzles are definitely on the more chill end of the spectrum. They’re perfect for whiling away an afternoon in quiet concentration as you sift through hundreds of similar looking pieces. The only excitement is over whether those five hours will leave you with a new picture of Big Ben, or just a big mess.

But when Vancouver, Washington-based artist Tim Klein gets a hold of some jigsaw puzzles, they become surreal images like those painted by Salvador Dalí. And the way he makes them is surprisingly simple: for years, jigsaw companies have been using the same cutting molds to make puzzle pieces. All Klein has to do is find interlocking pieces from different puzzles, and a mashup comes together.

Klein credits art professor Mel Andriga with first noticing this odd quirk of jigsaw puzzles back in the 1980’s. After reading about Andriga’s work in 1988, Klein was inspired to make some of his own jigsaw puzzle mashups.

“I take great pleasure in ‘discovering’ such bizarre images lying latent, sometimes for decades, within the pieces of ordinary mass-produced puzzles,” Klein says. “As I shift the pieces back and forth, trying different combinations, I feel like an archaeologist unearthing a hidden artifact.”

When you look at the results, you’ll agree: jigsaw puzzles have gotten a whole lot weirder.