I have always loved putting jigsaw puzzles together since I was a child. My father was the one who got me interested and we often had a puzzle going on the dining room table. He made several boards out of scrap wood he had from building bookshelves or cabinets. We used these boards to sort the pieces which is a habit I still have.
I started doing artwork with puzzle pieces in November of 2019. I submitted the second piece that I created into a show called a Woman's Journey at the Falls Church Arts Gallery the end of February 2020. My piece got selected and felt like I became an official hobby artist.
The show was scheduled to open Saturday, March 7 but everything shut down that week due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The show was already on display so one of the gallery volunteers filmed a video of everything in the gallery and posted it online. I watched the video and noticed that my artwork was hung upside down...oops! I wasn't too surprised as it was the symbol for 'woman' and I even had to look up what direction it went. I emailed the gallery and asked if anyone happens to be in the gallery, maybe they could turn it upside right. The show turned out to be the longest running show as it stayed up until the gallery reopened May 2021. My artwork actually sold! A father had stopped by the gallery to find something meaningful for his daughter. He was talking to Keith Thurston, the docent/curator, who told him about how I had made the piece about women all over the world working together and supporting each other. The gentleman really connected with that and thought it would be a wonderful gift for his daughter.