Scrimshaw is an ancient art, an artist who makes scrimshaw is called a scrimshander. A scrimshaw is made by "scrimming" a design into bone or ivory, and then staining the scrim with pigment. In this way, neolithic artists decorated their bone implements, and jewelry.
Scrimshaw is most celebrated, by the contemporary world, as an archaic craft of sailors and whalers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scrimshaw was produced by sea faring men, to decorate ivory trade goods. Scrimshaw is widely collected in the United States of America, where it is claimed as the first "American" art form. Nowadays, whaling is largely obsolete and, scrimshaw has become something of a lost art.
I made this scrimshaw in whale ivory, which I'd acquired
at a pow wow . This piece records my review of
' Treasure Island ' by Robert Louis Stevenson...one of my favorite sea faring stories.
photo credit: Peter Lattimer
-Copy Cats are Dirty Rats
Scrimshaw is most celebrated, by the contemporary world, as an archaic craft of sailors and whalers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scrimshaw was produced by sea faring men, to decorate ivory trade goods. Scrimshaw is widely collected in the United States of America, where it is claimed as the first "American" art form. Nowadays, whaling is largely obsolete and, scrimshaw has become something of a lost art.
I made this scrimshaw in whale ivory, which I'd acquired
at a pow wow . This piece records my review of
' Treasure Island ' by Robert Louis Stevenson...one of my favorite sea faring stories.
photo credit: Peter Lattimer
-Copy Cats are Dirty Rats
2 comments:
Hi Robert!
I like your blog too... Look at all the amazing things you make! Warm Regards, Lady Lavona
Hi Robert!
Woah -- the stuff you make is eye-wateringly beautiful!
Outstanding stuff!
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