Artist Lori Schory

Hi Puzzlers

We would like you to meet artist Lori Schory. Lori was born in 1956 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, an industrial designer, and her mother, an illustrator and portrait artist, introduced Lori at an early age to the many broad spectrum's the art world has to offer. Both her parents proved to be invaluable influences on her artistic growth.

In 1981, she received a Master's Degree in Drawing & Painting, with honors, from Northern Illinois University. Continuing her education she also took design courses at Chicago's American Academy of Art and greeting card design courses at NYU in New York City.

Lori continually builds upon her early exposure to the arts, her college education and her many years of diverse professional experience, in tackling every artistic assignment she encounters. Along the way, she has excelled in such unique and rewarding assignments as : Head Scenic Artist on the movie set for A Thousand Acres, a Touchstone Pictures Film; a participant in a juried Collaborative Art Initiative at the New York Feminist Art Institute, NYC; and she has been sole proprietor of Lori's Signs & Graphics for twenty years. Lori has mastered the ancient craft of hand-painting signs, lettering on glass and pictorial/mural painting. Mastering this craft allowed Lori to travel much of the southern United States, hand lettering and mural painting for Carlson Restaurants Worldwide. Sometimes these commercial influences can even be seen in her fine art, which is her primary focus today.

Currently, Lori has been licensing the use of her fine artwork to many types of manufactured goods like jigsaw puzzles. Lori has a keen sense of composition, color and design and greatly enjoys using her varied skills to create art for jigsaw puzzles. Her artwork draws upon the beauty found in nature and the humor of everyday living. Lori's first artwork for White Mountain Puzzles was in 2007 with her "Frogs Gone Wild". WMP intuitively sensed and appreciated the "funny bone" inherent in Lori's personality and artistic expressions. Together we have developed additional themes and compositions that playfully tease the eyes, amuse and humor the hearts of our puzzle fans. When Lori designs a puzzle for White Mountain Puzzles, she consciously pays extra-close attention to each and every minute detail. She strives to make each and every piece of the puzzle entertaining. This is especially evident in her photo collages, Country Fair, Yard Sale, and last but not least "Viva Las Vegas!"

Viva Las Vegas was inspired after Lori attended the 2009 International Licensing Show in Las Vegas. She was so delighted to meet some of us finally...in person, that she worked our photos into her most recent zany design. Look closely and you will see Cronan throwing the dice at the craps table, Kimberley flying on the big trapeze, Jill spinning the roulette wheel and Lisa as one of the Las Vegas's "ice girls"!

Watch out! If you see Lori in your area, she just might include YOU in her next puzzle design!

Happy Puzzling!

Health Benefits of Puzzling

Hi Puzzlers,

Did you know making puzzles is not only fun and entertaining, but also good for your health? Making puzzles has several health benefits associated with it and as more research is being done, the more benefits are being discovered. Benefits like reducing or slowing the onset of dementia, memory loss and Alzheimer's-some reports say as much as up to a third in reduction.

Children benefit from puzzling at an early age. Puzzling helps with developing spatial skills, eye-hand coordination/fine motor skills, memory development, and even helps get them ready for reading. Please remember to have age appropriate puzzles for your kids and assist in the completion, as it takes time to develop the necessary skills so they can complete the puzzle on their own.

Puzzling requires use of both sides of your brain simultaneously. The left brain, which is our analytical side, sorts and separates the pieces. The right side of the brain, where creativity happens, allows us to see or imagine the end result before it is finished. Using both sides of the brain at the same time causes neuron connections to be made linking the left and right side, and the more of these we have the better. These connections will lessen our chances of developing brain illnesses later in life.

Every puzzler knows that feeling of Ah! I did it! My puzzle is finished! Or, the feeling you get when you finally have found the piece you've been looking for. You know the one - it took 2 hours to find, the one you thought MUST be missing, the dog ate it - yeah that one. Well, those feeling are produced by a chemical called dopamine, which your body releases when you are successful at something. Runners thought they were the only ones getting it after a five-mile jog. Dopamine is a feel-good drug that can increase learning and memory. It's your body's way of saying good job.

We thought we were just having fun making our puzzles but, as science is showing, it's good for us too!

Happy Puzzling!

A Brief History Of Jigsaw Puzzles

Hi Puzzlers,

We thought it would be fun to share with you a brief history of the jigsaw puzzle. Below is a quick overview of what we discovered. Some things we knew, others truly amazed us.

Our journey begins in London in the 1760s when an engraver and mapmaker attached one of his maps to a sheet of wood and cut around the borders of each country with a fine-bladed saw. The "dissected map" was then used to teach geography to wealthy British children. Up until the 1820s, puzzles were mostly used for educational purposes and only available to the wealthy due to the cost of wood and the time it took to make one.

Then, in 1880, along came the treadle saw. The use of this tool is how the "jigsaw puzzle" name derived. This saw sped up the puzzle making process and, along with the introduction of cardboard, reduced the cost of manufacturing puzzles, making it affordable to the middle class.

Adult puzzle of this time were very difficult. The pieces did not interlock so, should you cough or sneeze, your pieces would move. There were no images to follow on the box, only a description, which was sometimes intentionally misleading to add to the difficulty. Puzzlers would not know what the real image was until the last piece was in place.

At the turn of the century the combination of using cardboard, die-cuts and interlocking pieces, which reduced the risk of spilling or losing pieces, created the jigsaw puzzle boom. The demand was so great that an American game manufacturer temporarily stopped making everything but puzzles.

During the Great Depression puzzle sales peaked. ...."It might seem odd at first glance that a non-necessity like a jigsaw puzzle would sell so well in the depression. But the appeal, then as now, was that one bought a good deal of entertainment for a small price. The weekly jigsaw puzzle could constitute a solitary or group activity, and would occupy one's time enjoyably for hours. And of course, a jigsaw puzzle was recyclable," in that one could break the puzzle up once one had completed it and then pass it on to another family member or friend. Another point to bear in mind is that jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts in the Depression discovered what many in our own time are rediscovering - that working on a jigsaw puzzle is a great way to reduce stress! ...Puzzles are still a lot of entertainment for a small price. And if they are addictive - and they are - they are a harmless addiction." - Daniel McAdam

Are you working on a puzzle right now and searching for your next one? Looks like you've caught the fever!

Happy Puzzling!