Since the early ’80′s I had involved myself in practicing the native American art form known as scrimshaw. It all came about from my intense interest in collecting custom hand-made knives from a few individuals whose acquaintance I had made throughout my travels as a professional forester (former life). I had sort of decided that I wanted to become a knife-maker. Once I found out how much it would cost to acquire/build up the necessary tools and equipment, not to mention the inventory of raw materials to engage in this fascinating area, my comment was, “Oh well, guess I’ll never get to do that.”. To which my friend replied, “Well, you ever thought about doing scrimshaw?”

“Nope, what the heck is that?”

And he proceeded to show me some knives he had that he hadn’t sent out to his customers yet with the art work on them. I asked how it was done, and it went from there. I started researching and reading, and acquiring books, and even some raw material like ivory scraps and micarta to practice on, and it became fascinating and addictive. It was something that I alone had total creative control over what came from my desk. Of course, since I was not trained as an artist, I had to rely on the work of others for subject matter. This is the reason that I have not tried to sell any of my early efforts; they were copyrighted works of art, and that is just something one just doesn’t do. I could reproduce them for my own personal use and pleasure, or even give them to family, but monetary compensation never entered into the equation.

Until now.

First, let’s have a look at a few images of some early  work.

I had some old micarta given to me by a knife maker I met not long after I moved to Clinton, and it was already yellowing when I got it. The images were done under a simple magnifying glass, and the stippling was more than a little on the heavy side. It was a good learning experience.

I kept it up sporadically over the next several years and produced a few decent pieces, which I gave away to friends and co-workers. Unfortunately, it was before I had the smarts to take pictures of them, and there were a couple that I really wished I had another crack at, but that’s the way it goes. Even more recently, I had fallen off badly on producing anything only to get totally revived about a year ago.

So this next set of pictures came up when I learned how valuable a microscope could be in this work. It made a dramatic impact on me and it continues to impress me with the degree of control it provides.

The copy of Michelangelo’s piece is for the truss rod cover on my guitar to replace the cheap black plastic one. And just as God is handing life to man, I hope this will hand some life to my “playing”.:-)