The Jigsaw Gallery

The French have a saying: plus ça change. It’s short for plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. It means, ‘the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same’. Translated into jigsaw-speak, it means that, no matter what puzzle you’re doing, if it has a lot of sky it’s going to be a right old nuisance to finish.

Carol Dyer’s ‘Market days on Fulton Street’ (a 1500-piece epic) had a lot of sky; not as much as some puzzles but more than we were comfortable with — which is why it took us (or rather, Shana, who has a keen eye for shades of blue) the best part of a week to finish the last few inches.

Never again!

This picture of Fulton Street, part of Brooklyn’s seafront area, is set in the late 19th century, and unlike the sky, certainly hasn’t stayed the same. In fact, parts of it are almost unrecognizable these days. Fulton Street mall is much more commercialised, with no sign of a horse and cart anywhere; parts of Fulton Street have been renamed; some areas of Fulton Street, have, apparently, ‘looked like a ghost town for years’; and Schermerhorn Row (on the right hand side of the picture) has been restored.

Here, thanks to Google maps, is how the Fulton Street area looks today. It’s almost like being there, isn’t it? Take care crossing the road, won’t you?

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Gale Pitt’s ‘The Tornado’ is essentially a montage of everyday objects and animals (food, furniture, frogs and so on) on a background of peaceful countryside. Only when you see the cows and sheep panicking, running for their lives, and the people who have been spared from the tornado’s greedy mouth, do you realise that it may not be merely an exercise in painting pretty pictures: what is shown here has really happened to real people and real animals. The contrast between art and reality merely adds to the horror.

Fortunately, no jigsaw pieces had disappeared — either due to human or to tornado influence — from this excellent secondhand bargain.

No need to worry about catching MRSA in the hospital depicted in Jan van Haasteren’s ‘Get well soon!’ The dangers here are incompetence, extreme disorganization and, perhaps, just a touch of madness. Nowhere else (except maybe in a Carry On film) will you see ripsaw-wielding surgeons chasing their patients round the hospital. One white-coated doctor makes a lunge for his patient, who is cowering under a waiting-room table. Nearby, in the main reception area, a hospital bed has collided with a wheelchair; a dog and a cat, both with bandages, are running amok. Get well soon? Hey, I feel better already. Honest, I do. In fact, I think I’ll give this casualty department a miss and head right on home.

Most people, whether they are religious or not, know the story of Noah and his ark. The story of a global flood, in fact, goes back thousands of years, long before most of today’s religions were born.

Christian artist, Tom duBois, brings the Flood story to life in ‘The Invitation’. Its vivid realism makes it an instant classic. Noah stands calmly watching the gathering crowd of animals. Presumably, he is the one issuing the invitation; but wait — high among the trees, where the sky can just be seen, is a face, either of God or one of His angel messengers. So that’s who is doing the inviting. Not that this is an invitation anyone could refuse, really, given the amount of water that’s coming. Turn this invite down and you’d better find yourself a good pair of wellies — and maybe a raft, too — and soon!

Perhaps, though, there’s a third option. The one face that’s looking out directly at us might also be issuing an invitation. Trouble is, that face just happens to belong to a tiger. And, since I don’t fancy becoming a tiger’s breakfast right now, this is one invitation I might just pass on, if it’s all the same to you.