I reproduce my paintings as jigsaw puzzles to invite dialogue and delight, joy and justice, maybe some jokes, too. My producing partner, Rani MacNeal, and I produce several public art-oriented resistance initiatives under the rubric of Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles. Our most popular event, “Puzzical Chairs & Pie with Live Music,” asks strangers to puzzle together despite partisan politics. In a public space we set up tables and chairs and strive to match people who don’t already know one another. They assemble a 24-piece puzzle together for the duration of a song. When the song ends they rotate chairs and receive a new partner and a new puzzle. And they eat good old American pie. Our most recent, funded by the visionary 195 District Park in Providence, attracted 150 humans and several dogs.
Periodically we also host free community events inside our app Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles, which allows people from all over to commune at a digital puzzle table. We bring in inspiring leaders, writers, painters, comedians, philosophers to chat and puzzle in a non-hierarchical space.
For the last three years I have also offered “Valentine for the Planet.” I choose a painting from my archive and create a very limited edition. To receive the print collectors are asked to donate to various humanitarian agencies and leaders, some of whom I know, some I don’t. This quarter I’m spotlighting two attorneys who have each dedicated the last 30 years to fighting for the rights of marginalized populations: Kristen Jackson (Public Counsel) and Praveen Fernandes (Constitutional Accountability Center).
Sarah Jane Lapp, Artist/Inventor/Mischief Maker, is a social practice artist and painter who has served as a filmmaker of documentaries and hand-drawn animations, an editorial cartoonist, a professor, and a solar installation operations wizard. She also enjoys helping people articulate and manifest their dreams; this summer she will serve as a puzzle specialist at Bradley Hospital. She designs jigsaw puzzles and, with Rani MacNeal, produces attendant Puzzical Chairs & Pie with Live Music and other public puzzle events to facilitate world peace, piece by piece. With Michael Ferrier she co-founded Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles and Puzzle Together, multiplayer puzzle apps with voice-chat which cozily connect over 1 million puzzlers across the planet. Other long-time collaborators include the musicians Mark Dresser and Skyjelly. Sarah Jane’s work has been supported by grants and fellowships including entities such as the MacDowell Colony, Rockefeller Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, Alpert Award in the Arts, Seattle’s Artist Trust, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Arts, Artslink/CEC, and, here in Rhode Island, by 195 District Park 🙂
A Fulbright Scholar Sarah Jane holds a B.A. from Brown University and an M.F.A from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she was a full-merit scholar.
Living among turkeys, deer, and other people’s dogs, Sarah Jane uses comedy and compassion to generate free and off-grid renewable energy.
Puzlkind.com
Cinemagoat.com
Valentine for the Planet