It doesn't matter where we get the information that we use to form our opinions, be it from print media, television or personal experience. Regardless of the source's political leanings, the message is always the same. Everything, even space for playing fields, parks, and other recreational areas, for roads, construction, and forests is becoming increasingly limited. Scientists are predicting that over the next 20 years, water will also become scarce and that it's likely we'll experience wars over water.
In 2002, for the first time, we reached the point at which we should have finally woken up to the fact that, on a global level, we extract more from our planet than can possibly be replenished. We exploit the Earth's natural resources to such an extent that we're in the process of destroying our basis of existence. We've become as much a danger to ourselves as we've been to fauna and flora for more than 100 years. We've driven a large number of animal species to extinction. Now we risk exterminating ourselves as well. Every day, more animal and plant species disappear. Their genetic makeup, which could have perhaps been useful to us one day, has been irretrievably lost. We have destroyed nature's fragile balance and endangered our own existence. We've no one to blame but ourselves.
After working as a photographer for 30 years, I felt burned out and decided that I'd reached the end of my two-dimensional career. At the same time, another creative impulse had slowly but surely been taking shape within me and demanded a means of expression. Neither photography, painting, drawing, nor crafting glass lamps satisfied this need. I wanted to break new ground and thought of woodworking, using my hands and my playful creativity to explore a third dimension. I had plenty of ideas, all of them vague. They needed only to be guided in the right direction. But as is often the case, there were innumerable obstacles - time, money, tools, insufficient space, lack of skills, being in the wrong place, to mention only a few. I encountered them all and was usually able to find a solution. The next step was to nail down and develop the ideas I felt floating around within me, to define them and give them new forms of expression. It was a challenge and I was up to it.
Animals fascinate me and they seem to be drawn to me too. It's always been important for me to depict animals, to fight for their existence, and to help endangered or injured animals. No wonder they are so prevalent in my work. When I started doing my animal puzzles, I didn't quite realize in what way my carvings reflected these concerns. Slowly, I started to understand that while making a puzzle, looking for the animal's predetermined living space within the puzzle, weighing the animal in my hand, an unconscious form of communication was also taking place. The animal seemed to be saying, "See, I exist too and we animals need our protected and secure living space just as much as you do. We have our place in nature's cycle, just like we do in this puzzle."

The Children's Zoo
This simple but very beautiful wooden object, which isn't really carved but sanded, was the beginning of my career as a wood carver. It led me to what I design and carve today. Originally, I hadn't planned on becoming a carver. By pure chance, this object triggered everything that followed. I was still working as a photographer and had been commissioned to photograph a puzzle for a handicrafts magazine. I was to build the puzzle and document the process step-by-step. This is something I had often done before, but it had never made me want to become a carpenter, or a mechanic, or make me want to build Tiffany lamps.
But this time it was different, although I didn't realize it immediately. Here were the animals of my youth coming back to inspire me to take a new turn. All of a sudden, I wanted to know how I could place lifelike animal carvings as close together as possible. Even as a child, I had a talent for packing and loading things using a minimum of space. A friend of my father's, a carpenter, recognized my knack for spatial relations. This natural gift was of great help in the creation of those early designs.

The Pig Puzzle
Whenever I want to give a special person a gift, I try to find something unusual and if I have the time, I often make it myself.
A friend of mine, who was about to turn 30, collected pigs in all shapes and sizes, so I made this puzzle for her birthday.
In Germany we have something called a "GlÃŒcksschwein", a pig that brings luck. This lucky charm was meant to soften the transition from her twenties to her thirties. I had given the project a lot of thought, but I wasn't very experienced in the use of wood and tools. Pigs have short legs and rounded, cuddly shapes, making it easy to place them close together. I quickly came up with a first draft, a group of 10 large pigs. To fill in the gaps, I carved piglets until I had 30 pieces. The next step was to give this family of pigs a home so they wouldn't slide around and fall apart. To keep the puzzle together, I decided to carve a frame in the shape of a 30-year-old pig and place the other pigs within it. This is how my signature puzzles were born.
It was Saturday night and being very impatient, I wanted to start working on my puzzle right away. Unfortunately I only had a piece of pinewood, but I couldn't wait to start, even if the materials I had weren't exactly the best. By Monday I had cut my left thumb and was forced to take a break. In spite of this, I finished the puzzle in time and my friend was delighted.
Like the Children's Zoo before, a simplified version of this puzzle was featured in the handicrafts magazine and enjoyed quite a success. The editor encouraged me to design a new puzzle.
I couldn't quite break away from the idea of a children's zoo and so a new zoo was created. Some of the animals were different and more lifelike than in the previous zoo. Even if their proportions and sizes were not quite right, the puzzle was teeming with animal life and perfectly laid out. This zoo was also the basic idea for an object I was to make later on.
In my youth I had always dreamed of going to Japan. Years later, I ended up on the beautiful island of Bali and instantly felt at home. Had Bali's famous carvings lured and bewitched me? This question I shall never be able to answer. The only thing I know for sure is that it gave my creative output an enormous boost. My designs have nothing to do with Bali; they are not an interpretation or a variation of traditional Balinese handicrafts, as many people seem to believe.
The island's traditional woodcarvings fascinated me and my urge to carve was reawakened. I started out by making a couple of simple presents and discovered Balinese carving tools and pulai wood, which were to become an integral part of my work.

The Whale
It was around this time that I was greatly moved by a newspaper article about beached whales that died a slow and horrible death. Even worse was the news a couple of days later that Japan and Norway intended to continue whaling.
My immediate reaction was to design a sea mammal puzzle in protest. But somehow, I just couldn't come up with an idea that expressed the whales' great agility as well as their positive social behavior. Not being a whale specialist, I just didn't know enough about them. Some time later, while I was on a trip to Australia, I saw what I needed. It was a poster showing every kind of whale, depicted in sufficient detail and showing the right proportions. Now I could go to work.
In the meantime on Bali, I had greatly improved my carving technique by redoing my three previous puzzles using pulai wood. Unbeknownst to me, my Children's Zoo puzzle had been copied and thus become the prototype for all of Bali's puzzle carvings.
This made me want to protect my designs, so I set up a workshop where I could keep them secret more easily. Besides, I was tired of having wood chips and sawdust on my verandah, which was now reserved for drawing. I became deeply involved in the whale puzzle and strangely enough, I encountered great difficulties in designing it. How to deal with the whales' huge tail fins when the wood is only two to three centimeters thick? Should the whales be placed in the direction of the wood's grain to ensure stability? The only way to find out was by trial and error.
Once I thought I had the perfect solution, I went to work, but soon realized that the fin problem was far from solved. I needed more room for the tail fins. This is why I thought of layering the animals. Not only was this the perfect solution, it also protected me from spying eyes, as not all the animal figures were visible. The second prototype was a success.
The whale arrangement seemed to come alive, with the mammals swarming in their "aquarium" and their tail fins just right. But for the first time I had to resort to a trick. Until then, I had carved my puzzles from single pieces of wood measuring 30x40x3 centimeters. The whales' large flukes and the overlapping made it necessary to carve smaller individual whales from separate pieces of pulai wood.

People often ask me how I come up with such ideas, with the emphasis on the "such". It is a difficult question to answer. Well, how are these ideas born? Where do they come from, who or what inspires them? These questions are hard to answer since ideas originate in flashes, altered states of perception, chain reactions, and dreams, among other things.
Sometime, somewhere, something sows the seed and while it germinates, more ideas develop. The wind caresses the delicate plant, the sun shines on it, the rain cools it and all together they contribute to making the plant grow. My ideas grow and blossom until at some point when they are big enough, sometimes with the help of a completely different idea, the labor pains set in - suddenly the idea is born. "Here I am, take me, do something with me, breathe life into me." Once the idea is born, it loudly claims its right to exist, but it isn't necessarily what I end up developing. This idea just triggers yet another one. Sometimes several ideas merge into one new concept.
As a child, while my playmates were busy drawing pictures of tanks, airplanes, soldiers, and Indians as well as playing with loads of plastic war toys, I was busy tracing animals from various books since I couldn't draw them myself. I also bought lots of plastic animal figures. I soon owned a large zoo, which had to face my playmates' hordes of warriors. If their Indians wanted to shoot my lions, I was forced to have the lions eat them - after all, lions have no shotguns. I invented exciting situations in which my animals had to defend themselves against enemies. These tactics were later helpful when playing with the other children.
I made my first single piece, a carved elephant, from some leftover wood. I carved it long after I had started making puzzles. I am very attached to any wood left over from other projects. I can't and refuse to burn these small pieces of wood which are quite useless. I keep them forever and feel their questioning presence. "What will you do with me?" they seem to ask. I don't always know the answer.
It was the elephant that led the way. Originally, it was meant to be a present for a friend. When the carving was finished, I started thinking about how to best pack and protect it. Then something strange happened. The rest of the wood from which I had sawed the elephant and which would normally have been useless, was lying next to my jigsaw and seemed to be calling out to me. I turned to look, I studied it, and suddenly I knew the answer: the perfect protection for the elephant was the leftover piece of wood from which it had been sawn.
It wasn't until later that I realized this piece of wood wasn't just an ordinary piece of wood; it was the elephant's home, its natural habitat, figuratively speaking. Placed in its original surroundings, the elephant seemed to come alive. I hadn't just carved an elephant. By using the leftover wood, I had also created a miniature world. But as I said before, I didn't have this idea from the very beginning; it had to develop and evolve.
I was very excited when I had finished and put both pieces together. Every time I sawed bears, giraffes, gorillas, and whales out of leftover pieces of wood, I had the feeling the animals were there long before I had sawed them out. A long and narrow piece of leftover wood demanded to be freed. "I am a giraffe, let me out," it called to me. The dark and gnarled chunk of burl joined in saying, "And I am a bear." Meanwhile, the crocodile sunned itself on a riverbank, which at first glance seemed to be a log. It all came together and the idea was born: habitats. Sometimes something has to happen which isn't a part of the original concept and which unexpectedly plays a guiding role in the realization of the idea.
Long before the whale project, I had wanted to design a crÚche. It had been a central part of my thinking since I was five years old. That summer, I had secretly gone up to the attic and discovered a nativity scene in a big trunk. I placed the figures around me at arm's length and was promptly caught red-handed by my mother. Being at the center of the holy family was not enough to protect me from punishment. This incident was to be my initiation into the circle of nativity scene aficionados, even though I wasn't to become a real member until much later.
I often inspected commercially made, junky looking figures in nativity sets and became aware of how difficult it was to store these delicate figures for the rest of the year without damaging them. I didn't want that kind of crÚche. Mine was to be simple and down-to-earth. Jesus, a newborn, need not have the usual "our savior" expression on his face. My figures were to be human, not weighed down by biblical clichés. But all my efforts to translate the nativity scene into a puzzle failed. Even a visit to the Frankfurt trade fair's special crÚche section was of no help. By coincidence, I saw nativity figures in a newspaper. They were sketched very simply, and instantly I realized that this was the key to my project.
Once again I encountered the usual puzzle problems. How much liberty could I take with the figures to keep the gaps between them to a minimum? What should the comet look like, how many farm animals should there be? Finally, three weeks later a feasible design in which the figures were laid out in every conceivable position was ready.
I could go to work on the prototype. At this point one finds out what's wrong with the two-dimensional sketch, where the gaps are and how they can be filled. I then celebrated Christmas. It was mid-August, the temperature was 34 degrees centigrade and I was on Bali. My first nativity puzzle was finished. It needed improvements and the figures were very simple, but they were protected within the puzzle. All in all, it was only four centimeters in height and I was very pleased with it.

The Wood
Due to my long sojourns on Bali, my job as a photographer started to flounder. None of my clients was willing to put up with my prolonged absences. No wonder I started to look for another way of earning my living. I decided that my carvings would make up for it. The time had come for the production of a small series of my four puzzles. This was to help take care of my living expenses.
Although Indonesia is one of the biggest exporters of wood, there are no lumberyards where one can buy five boards of pulai wood. One has to order a tree. These willow-like trees are common on Bali and this "sacred" tree is often found near temples. But the Balinese fear the wrath of the evil spirits who inhabit the trees. This is why nobody fells them unless they absolutely have to. If they do resort to felling one, it is done only after a tree ceremony is held in which offerings are made and forgiveness sought.
This wood is usually used to make sacred Topeng masks, Barong animal heads and bull heads for the cremation ceremonies of kings and priests. Thank God the island consists of many small kingdoms so that there is always enough wood for my carvings.
As a rule, the softwood of these fast-growing and mighty trees is infested with insects. The trees are sold as seen, one doesn't know what they're like until one saws them apart.
So I ordered trees and acquired my first cubic meters of pulai wood. The utter existence of this wood somehow forced me to carve lots and lots of puzzles. It was either me or the termites and other pests. I decided to take on the challenge.

Wood is a unique material
Wood is a wonderful material to work with. Almost anything can be made from it. Wood varies in color, density and structure, but it always communicates warmth. No other hard material is as soft once it is finely sanded or polished. Willow, poplars, birch, and pulai wood have very short fibers and are therefore perfect for carving. The longer the fibers, the less suited a wood is for carving. Pulai wood's end grain usually has very fine pores and can therefore be carved in any direction.
In the tropics many processes take place at a more accelerated pace. This is particularly the case with parasites infesting living trees and freshly felled softwood. Pulai trees are prone to blue mold, wind torsion cracks, bast fiber formation, and attack from all sorts of pests. All this is bad for the commercial lumberyards, but makes this type of tree even more interesting for me due to the surprising textures and surfaces that characterize the wood.
When I started, I used boards to make square puzzles with smooth edges. For many of my objects I now prefer the rough, natural bark edges. Sometimes, I even glue them on. This results in one-of-a-kind pieces because their appearance is not only determined by the motif but by the wood as well. Natural edges and animal motifs have replaced the earlier stiffness of the rectangular form and give my work a richer and more intriguing aspect.
But wood also has its disadvantages, which can be detrimental to my work. Since not all parts of a puzzle can be safely positioned in the direction of the grain, the most fragile parts of an animal carving have to be taken into consideration when designing the puzzle. For instance, a giraffe's legs and neck or a deer's delicate antlers can only be carved in the direction of growth. This makes designing the puzzles extremely complicated. It isn't always possible to carve these parts as finely as they should be. Still, my animals look lifelike enough to make people enjoy and want to buy them.

Noah's Ark
Everyday we hear of how endangered our wildlife and flora is. The news that yet another animal, insect or fish has become extinct is sad and distressing. The Boers drove the Bluebuck to extinction as early as 1799, hunting it ruthlessly to turn its habitat into agricultural land. Since then, the rate of extermination has steadily increased. The number of threatened species is alarming and the Red List grows longer and longer each day. It will soon make more sense to compile a list of species that are not threatened.
With this in mind, and with wood waiting to be used, I soon thought up new projects. Frogs were waiting to croak and a first version of Noah's Ark embarked on its maiden voyage. Years had past since I had done my first carvings and in the meantime my skills had improved.
I wanted to raise awareness by carving a large version of Noah's Ark. I started out with a revised version of my Children's Zoo. But it took me a long time to create a final design. Once I came up with the idea of placing the crocodile back to back with the giraffe, positioning the rest of the 86 animals was easy. I left Noah out of the picture, thinking it might be better to let the animals fend for themselves.
I had taken the precaution of having several five and eight-centimeter boards cut from my third tree. The preliminary sketch of the ark resulted in a total boat length of 100 centimeters and a height of 10 centimeters. I was perturbed to discover that my jigsaw could not deal with such dimensions and therefore needed to be adapted. Once again, it became obvious that there often is a huge discrepancy between creative fervor and technical implementation.
This ark, with 88 animals, was probably the world's largest, but I had no way of knowing for sure. In 1999, I decided to build an even bigger one. In the meantime, I had adapted my saw so that its height of stroke was increased and it could saw vertically through several thick planks of wood. This enabled me to make an ark that was 150 centimeters in length, carrying 142 animals. This piece was subsequently rewarded with an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Chinese Horoscope
Being an asiaphile, it was not long before I became interested in the Chinese horoscope as well. I usually approach a new subject without too many constraints. In this case, there were only two: 12 predetermined animals were to be contained within a circle. After a few days, when I had come up with a suitable design, my only problem being the dragon (what does a dragon look like?), I had the unfortunate idea of incorporating the Yin and Yang symbol into the circle. This meant I had to start all over again. Equipped with scissors, paper, and other aids, I began to place the animals within the circle along the middle S line. But try as I might, I could not place six animals on each side of the Yin/Yang line. The larger animals and the necessity of having animals fit into each other posed insurmountable problems. After a few weeks, I gave up and placed five animals on one side and seven on the other.
Those who know me know that I can't accept defeat for long. It took another three years for me to feel that I had achieved a breakthrough. In the meantime I had learned more about Yin and Yang and my expectations were higher. My project was complicated by the fact that there were supposed to be six animals in one group and six in the other. All animals in the Yang group, with the exception of the rat, are rather large. In the end I found a solution to my liking and the project was successfully completed.

Designs
People often ask if they may touch the animals since they look so real. To make wooden animals look as real as possible I need a good sketch. Sadly, I am not good at drawing. I never learned how, and admire those who can easily sketch things they see such as a market scene or a hand holding a cup. Since I can't to do this, I resort to the aid of drawing pads, parchment paper, pencils, erasers, scissors, glue, and a photocopying machine.
Again and again I draw a cat or a tapir, erase, turn around, turn over, cut, and hold the drawing up to mirror, until it's the right size and position to fit it into the space in the puzzle where it belongs. Sometimes I have to switch around whole groups of animals in an almost finished design. For instance, a frog and a hippopotamus might have to make room for a platypus and all its friends because in some puzzles technicalities dictate the position of the animal groupings. In larger puzzles, I not only have to consider how animals fit into each other when positioned next to each other but also on top of one another. A drawing is two-dimensional, and when I carve an animal it becomes three-dimensional. This means it takes up a different kind of space than it does on paper. The drawing or paper cutout is only an approximation, but hardly a prototype of the object to be completed.
My puzzles challenge me to fill the gaps between the animals as best I can. There are two possibilities. To make animals take up more room, I can make some of them less perfect, dispensing with some characteristic detail of their anatomy. This is a solution that goes against my striving for perfection. The other possibility is to fill the gaps with smaller animals. But there comes a point when the figures become so small that I can hardly hold the wood and risk bloody fingers. This is when I decide to give up on trying to fill the gaps.
When designing an object, its size is always determined by the thickness of the wood to be used. The thicker the wood, the larger the animals and the ensuing gaps. Then I have to go to work carving smaller animals to fill these large gaps. There are other problems involved as well. For instance, if the thickness of the wood allows me to carve an elephant out of it, the space next to the elephant has to be filled with at least two smaller, identical animals positioned on top of each other.

Geckos
I was in the tropics again during the rainy season when termites swarm. One evening, I was sitting on my verandah when the "termite snowstorm" began. Ants, frogs, dogs, cats, rice-paddy crabs, and last but not least, the usually shy geckos, forget all else when termites show up. Wherever the white ants alight, their hungry enemies, geckos, are waiting. Suddenly seven small geckos were twisting and squirming on the ground before me. They couldn't devour the termites fast enough. For just one moment, they were curiously intertwined, long enough for me to make a mental note of it. The next day I sketched them and cut out a paper model. It wasn't difficult since there is hardly a position these little lizards can't twist themselves into. Three weeks later the gecko puzzle was finished. Geckos and crocodiles have very similar shapes. A friend of mine is very fond of crocodiles, so I soon revised the original puzzle and created a crocodile puzzle. I had never worked faster and with as much ease.

The Rhinoceros
Another story was already taking shape. Once when I was still working as a photographer, I was commissioned to photograph a shipment of 360 rhinoceros horns, which had been declared to be woodcarvings, and seized by customs officers in Bremen. Some 360 rhinoceroses had been brutally and cruelly slaughtered just for the sake of their horns. A sad incident I never forgot. Years later, a photograph of a rhinoceros that had been shot brought the whole story back and triggered something within me. "You must make people aware of the injustice suffered by these poor animals," my inner voice told me. I was reminded of the difficulties I had encountered when making the ark and decided to portray the life of the hunted rhinoceroses by carving it into several slabs of wood. Each slab was to show a phase of the animal's life. Put together, the slabs would embody a rhinoceros. It was to become yet another kind of puzzle.
Most of the motifs were clear. The only difficulty was to show how the horn makes its way from Africa to Asia. I didn't feel like carving a clipper braving the seven seas. Suddenly I had a good idea. I could carve the other side of the slab depicting an African bar in which illegally collected rhinoceros horns are stored. The reverse side would be a Chinese trading post. By turning the slab the viewer would thus be transported to another continent.
I sketched the individual stages. Once the slabs had been cut out, another unexpected problem arose. Since I had to carve within the growth rings, it soon became clear that my hands and my tools were too big to carve very deeply. The dimensions I had chosen were too small. I could see the areas that I had to saw, carve, and sand, but I couldn't reach them. So I made smaller tools, developed my own carving knives, created rounded sanding utensils using diamond nail files, and began using miniature milling cutters. During the three-month construction period, I also found a good way of holding together the eight slabs that I had carved in such detail. I decide to use a long round wooden rod symbolizing a penis. It penetrated all eight slabs and was held in place on the side of the head by the bullet with which the animal had been shot. I thought, "If this is how we deal with rhinoceroses, some day a bullet will kill us too".
Of course it pleases me when people who come to my exhibitions are full of praise. This praise not only acknowledges the value of my artistic concepts, but also shows approval and support for the statement each object makes. I find it inspiring, giving me new energy to continue and encouraging me to explore and make improvements. My work has often elicited chuckles, been a cause for joy, and inspired enthusiasm, but the rhinoceros significantly expanded the emotional range of my audience's reactions.
Curious admirers have traveled hundreds of kilometers to see the story of the rhinoceros, Noah's Ark, and other objects. So when I open the rhinoceros and narrate its life, each sorry stage depicted on a slab of wood, I often have paper tissue handy for them to dry their tears. The rhinoceros has often touched people deeply and caused them to show their feelings without restraint.

Cat and Dog
Sometimes, as in the case of the cat puzzle, I draw my initial sketch on a slip of paper in a restaurant during the course of a meal. This first spontaneous idea can evolve and later diverge greatly from the original. Once I have an idea, it almost literally demands to be executed. But the road leading to the completion of the project can be long and bumpy. When the period of gestation ends and I am working on implementing an idea, my thoughts start to wander, exploring new shores. This is when, in my mind, new projects start to take shape. These can be relatively simple, but also complicated projects which can take years to realize. I learned a lot from the mistakes I made doing the Chinese horoscope. These days I try to get as much information as I can before starting a new project. Then there are those ideas for which I lack perfect images and satisfactory sketches. But I have time and can wait.
The dog puzzle was a different matter. Visitors to my exhibitions always annoyed me by asking whether I didn't like dogs because I had no dog puzzles. So at some point I went to work sketching a dog puzzle. At the same time, I was distressed by the thought that this might be a recurring question. Would I have to make puzzles of every single animal on Earth? I decided that every time I was asked such a question, I would refer to my version of Noah's Ark.
I was well aware that dog owners do not mean "dog" when they say "dog". They mean a particular breed, like a Doberman, fox terrier, poodle, etc. So I went through all my animal books and encyclopedias looking for dog illustrations that I could use as models for my carvings. I paid special attention to their head shape, paws, and tails. These details were key to a convincing depiction of the individual breeds and the puzzle's success.
After mulling over their contours, lengthening necks, modifying muzzles and noses, checking shoulder heights and curves, I was ready to go to work carving. As usual, it soon became obvious that a satisfactory draft is not necessarily good enough for a three-dimensional object. I had to lengthen the neck of the German shepherd and consequently correct the position of the other dogs surrounding it. Before starting work on the final version, I filled the remaining gaps with mini poodles, bones, and a small barrel of brandy for the St. Bernard.

The Farmhouse
We know that most farmhouses aren't what they used to be. Time and again we are shocked by scandals involving modern-day animal husbandry affecting pigs, cattle, and chickens. We've heard that viruses and bacteria can destroy everything in a brief period of time. On the other hand, the excessive medication used to treat livestock poses a grave threat to our health. Therefore I yearned for the kind of farmhouse I had known in my childhood, even if it was only a miniature version. It should have all the animals that used to belong on a farm: dogs, cats, mice, sheep, goats, horses and cows. Once again, I began drawing, cutting and copying figures until pieces interlocked satisfactorily and everything fit perfectly onto a piece of wood of the size I prefer to use. I didn't succeed in finding the best position for all 52 animals. It wasn't always possible to place them in the direction of the grain, so some of them lead a perilous existence.
"That's something you're gonna sell like hot cakes in the States," a delighted American remarked at an exhibition. "Just give it to Toys "R" Us and they'll cast it in plastic and sell it by the thousands." But this is exactly what I wish to avoid. These puzzles are not meant to be mass-produced and end up forgotten, left somewhere in a corner. They are meant to be something special, something one takes pleasure in again and again, and perhaps something to pass on to the following generation. Content and form make up a timeless entity allowing the puzzle to survive the passing of time and be cherished for years to come.

Erna the Pig
At some point, the farmhouse idea led me to the genetically modified pig I named Erna. Its construction resembles that of the rhinoceros, but its content is very different. The rhinoceros is so far removed from us that we can disassociate ourselves from its extermination. The pig on the other hand, is part of our world and of our daily lives. Erna is basically about what we eat. Interestingly enough, everybody loves to hear the rhinoceros story, but Erna's ordeal is uncomfortably close to home and most people tend to turn their backs on her life story.

Seven Ancient Forests
Being so concerned about the environment, I naturally became aware of other voices. Greenpeace has done a lot and their campaign to save the last seven ancient forests prompted me to embark on a forest puzzle. I chose one animal to represent each of the seven forests. It gave me great pleasure to arrange them and to fill the gaps with the small animals typical of each habitat.
Once again the prototype was not without its shortcomings. Many small gaps were particularly challenging. For the first puzzles, I chose planks with special characteristics such as natural bark edges, knots and even termite holes.
The idea was to adapt the initial design to the structure of the piece of wood I had chosen to use. While I worked on them, I gave the puzzles names such as "Wherever we go, someone else has been there before us," or "Whatever it is, it has the same right to live as we do." If we can't change or develop something without destroying what is already there, we must work on our idea until we find a way of maintaining the original balance, making coexistence possible.
If we made an effort and applied ourselves, many things on this planet could be conserved and new developments could be implemented without the risk of destroying Nature's delicate balance.

The Chess Game
For a long time, I had been thinking of making a chess game with animal pieces. I often mulled over it, as I would over a difficult move, but I never made any progress. Then finally one day I knew which of the many existing animals would confront each other on this imaginary battlefield.
As a rule, I use the rest of the wood plank I carved the animals out of as a frame as well as for their protection. A chess game makes this impossible. First of all, it has to be made from two different kinds of wood and at the same time I wanted the chess game to be a box for the figures too. I also wanted the board to be different. Instead of the usual squares, it would have leaves. So I had no choice but to take up marquetry. The result was a chess game in which board and animals merge into one harmonious body. Well, it took me 10 years to develop the idea, no wonder it came out so well.
Now we, like my monkey Alfi, are all exhausted from having diligently worked our way through the presentation of my puzzles and a few of my animal pieces. The range of my objects is considerable and such a slim volume has its limits. Just think, the choice of wood alone can make a motif change the way it looks completely, resulting in endless variations. Those of you who have followed me this far can easily imagine that in the future I will never be at a loss for ideas.
The question is rather whether I will tend more towards carving objects such as the rhinoceros, or continue to make puzzles with themes such as the German forest, an idea I've had since I was 11 years old.

A nice woman sent me this puzzle made in 1957 by Enzo Mari. I was delighted as it really is a beautiful arrangement. The Museum fÃŒr Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum of Decorative Arts) in Hamburg has a copy. Other than that, I've never come across anything that resembles my objects in substance or in composition. Perhaps it's true that I am the only one in the world who so consistently makes objects that depict animal life in this way. In this book, some of the images have been reversed and not all pieces are quite finished. I'll finish them whenever I have the time and feel like it: an endless story.
The animals that inhabit Africa, Asia, and the oceans have inspired most of my puzzles and animal objects. European forests have been on my mind since my first draft for such a puzzle in 1954. But every time I think of facing the mighty deer antlers, I put the project aside.

I thank everyone who gave me advice and assisted me in making this documentation possible.