Thought to be the only truly American art form, scrimshaw has its roots in the New England whalers of long ago, and in the native peoples of Alaska. Images were incised into walrus tusks and whale teeth with sewing needles or other sharp implements, and darkened with ink, paint, or tar.

Nowadays, scrimshanders use a wide variety of materials, from pre-ban elephant ivory to ancient mastodon ivory to modern synthetics and plastics. Scrimshaw is the extreme-patience-requiring art of incising lines/dots into ivory/bone/synthetics, and filling those lines/dots with ink or paint, thereby producing a usually small and often incredibly detailed image.

I was completely unaware of scrimshaw, except in the historical sense, until one fateful day when a friend of mine who is a talented engraver said the fateful words "you should try scrimshaw." Like a moth to a flame... I did some research and bought some materials and did some practice, and promptly became officially obsessed with it. :-) I promise you will be seeing my name for years to come!

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last updated August 19, 2010