 Almost 200 years ago, sailors aboard whaling ships developed one of the few true American
Art forms. This was called scrimshaw. Bored and lonely sailors, whittled and carved, drew
and engraved, on bones and teeth, of the magnificent creatures they were hunting. Scrimshaw
is derived from the shipboard practice of sailors creating common tools, and on whaling ships
the byproducts of whales were readily available. The term originally referred to the making
of these tools, only later referring to works of art created by whalers in their spare time. It
is believed that the term scrimshaw literally meant "idle time".
Scrimshaw essentially was a leisure activity for whalers. Because the work of whaling was
very dangerous at the best of times, whalers were unable to work at night. This gave them a
great deal more free time than other sailors. A lot of scrimshaw was never signed and a great
many of the pieces are anonymous. Ship's captains often encouraged this practice, and allotted
sailors a certain amount of ivory or bone according to their status. It was then rounded up Early scrimshaw was done with crude sailing needles, and the movement of the ship, as well as the skill of the artist, produced drawings of varying levels of detail and artistry. Originally, candle black, soot or tobacco juice would have been used to bring the etched design into view. Today's artists use finer tools in various sizes, mostly borrowed from the dental industry. Some scrimshanders ink their work with more than one color, and restrained polychromed examples of this art are now popular. While scrimshaw is rarely done on whale bone these days, the art is still practiced by a few artists. Common modern materials would be micarta and other artificial ivories, bone and legally obtained pre-ban elephant ivory. Modern scrimshaw typically retains the nautical themes of historical scrimshaw, but can also go well outside of the traditional. In the early days of scrimshaw, nudity was discouraged and rarely survived, due to the very religious natures of most captains. The ones that did survive usually had to be smuggled off the ship. In the early 1980's another bored, lonely sailor, aboard the USS Independence, discovered a book about scrimshaw one day in the ships library. This sailor was an artist at heart, and decided that this was his calling. For many years he struggled with this unique art form, as there was no good instruction available. He learned it the hard way, by trial and error, constantly refining and changing his techniques. He experimented with many different subjects for his artwork, but since he was already fairly skilled at sketching the female form, when he discovered scrimshaw in the first place, this was of course where he was eventually led to concentrate his talents. For most of his early years as a scrimshander, this was just a hobby. But through constant encouragement from his wife and family, and then a major job upheaval, he was finally led to make this his career. This sailor is Howard Thomas, And so was born, A Sailor's Dream...................... |
and sold to help cover the costs of their excursions.