Artifact Part 1 of 3: An essay about Maya Gupta, the Artifact Puzzle company's founder, the history of the company, its Ecru line, and the Hoefnagel Puzzle Club (about 4400 words; 4 photos)
You’ve done an impressive job, Bill, with your biography of Maya Gupta. Her story brought to mind for me how often (in my experience and awareness) people move into work that seems very different from what they first trained or planned on doing as a career. Many, many of my friends, for example, invested in a college/university major/programme such as widgets, say, and eventually fell in love with thingamajig work.
One thing I had a bit of trouble visualizing is how Ms. Gupta managed to assemble the planned-gift jigsaw puzzle during a 14-hour airplane trip. Did it fit on her little pull-down tray?
The resonance of her varied occupations with research/development of Artificial Intelligence was interesting to contemplate, too.
My wife and I were told to repaint our living room in Sooke, British Columbia, when we were trying to sell our house, back in 2008. Our real estate agent said that taupe was the preferred indoor colour. What a laugh it turned out to be trying to figure out just what qualified as taupe. There seemed to be so many variations on that theme. I brought this up today because of your ecru colour-chart that appears in your posting about the new Ecru line of puzzles.
One more thing that I’d like to mention is that, even though the number of photographs you’ve included with the present essay is small, I’m glad you did include one of the snail puzzle/logo.
Thanks, Greg. I didn’t want to go into a digression about it in the article itself but I think there is an interesting parallels between the story of Maya’s career and that of my daughter Wendy. She was also a math geek who began her university education in engineering. But she soon tired of the “boy’s club” atmosphere in the engineering program and switched to computer science where a higher proportion of the students and faculty were female. (Did you know that Electrical Engineering is still the STEM discipline that has the fewest females? Only about 11%.)
As you know, after Wendy got her computer science degree she went on to get a master’s degree in Library Science. That combination of training (and a great recommendation from her advisor) enabled her to score the job of Web Librarian for Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She really enjoyed doing that work but then an opportunity for her real “dream job” opened up when the owner/proprietor of the local independent downtown 3-screen cinema decided to retire.
Wendy was even more of a cinema geek than a math geek and grabbed the opportunity to buy the faltering business. Now, after much further investment in a complete remodeling, converting from 35mm projectors to digital, and upgrading the sound system, as well as with Wendy's new approaches to programming and marketing, The Screening Room is doing quite well despite the fact that the movie theatre industry overall is struggling.
You’ve done an impressive job, Bill, with your biography of Maya Gupta. Her story brought to mind for me how often (in my experience and awareness) people move into work that seems very different from what they first trained or planned on doing as a career. Many, many of my friends, for example, invested in a college/university major/programme such as widgets, say, and eventually fell in love with thingamajig work.
One thing I had a bit of trouble visualizing is how Ms. Gupta managed to assemble the planned-gift jigsaw puzzle during a 14-hour airplane trip. Did it fit on her little pull-down tray?
The resonance of her varied occupations with research/development of Artificial Intelligence was interesting to contemplate, too.
My wife and I were told to repaint our living room in Sooke, British Columbia, when we were trying to sell our house, back in 2008. Our real estate agent said that taupe was the preferred indoor colour. What a laugh it turned out to be trying to figure out just what qualified as taupe. There seemed to be so many variations on that theme. I brought this up today because of your ecru colour-chart that appears in your posting about the new Ecru line of puzzles.
One more thing that I’d like to mention is that, even though the number of photographs you’ve included with the present essay is small, I’m glad you did include one of the snail puzzle/logo.
I love the snail!
Thanks for all your effort, Bill.
—Greg
Thanks, Greg. I didn’t want to go into a digression about it in the article itself but I think there is an interesting parallels between the story of Maya’s career and that of my daughter Wendy. She was also a math geek who began her university education in engineering. But she soon tired of the “boy’s club” atmosphere in the engineering program and switched to computer science where a higher proportion of the students and faculty were female. (Did you know that Electrical Engineering is still the STEM discipline that has the fewest females? Only about 11%.)
As you know, after Wendy got her computer science degree she went on to get a master’s degree in Library Science. That combination of training (and a great recommendation from her advisor) enabled her to score the job of Web Librarian for Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She really enjoyed doing that work but then an opportunity for her real “dream job” opened up when the owner/proprietor of the local independent downtown 3-screen cinema decided to retire.
Wendy was even more of a cinema geek than a math geek and grabbed the opportunity to buy the faltering business. Now, after much further investment in a complete remodeling, converting from 35mm projectors to digital, and upgrading the sound system, as well as with Wendy's new approaches to programming and marketing, The Screening Room is doing quite well despite the fact that the movie theatre industry overall is struggling.