Ivory Scratchin'

I've been a scrimshander since 1979. For the uninitiated that means I create art works on various forms of ivory, commonly known as scrimshaw. To be simplistic, I merely incise images onto the surface of a piece of ivory, coloring them with inks or oil colors. It's a repetitive technique of cutting or incising the surface, applying pigment, wiping it off, and repeating the process until the desired effects are achieved.

Most of my subject matter is wildlife, with emphasis on birds of prey and the big cats of the world. I do not do any maritime subjects as might have been done by the scrimshanders of the 18th and 19th centuries. I utilize many forms of legal ivory including elephant, wooly mammoth and fossilized walrus.

The attached photo shows a mother Snow Leopard and cub on a piece of mammoth ivory, mounted on a base of eucalyptus burl and ebony.