Joel Riggs is an artist, musician, programmer, and martial artist in Decatur, GA.
He received a BA magna cum laude from Dartmouth College 1986, majoring in Geography with a specialty in Cartography. He had a second concentration in new music composition and synthesis.
Joel is originally from Ruston, Louisiana, and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1986 to 2008. In Georgia he and his wife Maria Moore Riggs have opened a popular doughnut shop, and are raising their son Rocket Sweet (b. 2007).
Dear Joel,
This is my first mail to you.
I live in Tokyo, Japan and attended G4G11 in Atlanta this March. I am interested in Puzzles.
I received your exchange gift, i.e. a box of 24 crayons of the same color. I have been thinking about what is your intention of giving us it as your exchange gift since then. This is great puzzle.
Is it conversation piece on what it is?
Is this brainstorming piece on how to use 24 crayons?
I would like to know your true intention.
Best Regards,
Naoaki Takashima
Dear Naoaki, I have been working on a series of art pieces involving melting crayons for several years (see http://www.TwoCrayons.com), and as a part of it, I have found sorting crayons by color to be a nice meditation practice. I created the boxes of monochrome crayons (408 of them!) to give as gifts at G4G11 over a period of about six or seven hours. My primary intentions for the recipients were 1) the “gee-whiz” factor, 2) to prompt the question “How did he do this?”, and 3) to evoke thoughts of the possible permutations of 24 items taken 24 at a time. The total possible permutations of 24 crayons from these sets resorted in a box is 24^24, which is 1,333,735,776,850,284,124,449,081,472,843,776. Thanks so much for your emailed inquiry, and apologies for taking over four years to respond. Sincerely, Joel Riggs