Artists
Scrimshaw Artist
Keeps Etching Tradition Alive
A Retired Technology Professor
Dedicates His Time to A Metaphysical Practice
of the Centuries-Old Art Form
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Florence Archie Hornfelt calls it his scribe: a penlike tool with an old-fashioned steel phonograph needle for a tip.
He lowers the steel to a piece of hand-polished antler and begins to scratch, applying considerable pressure in the process.
"It gets hard on the fingers," the 70-year-old man said. "I only just work a little while at a time."
He calls himself a "scrimshawer," a practitioner of an art practiced for centuries that can produce pieces of exquisite beauty.
After a few deft strokes of his long fingers, he rubs India ink on the smooth white surface. When he wipes it off, a cartoon face formed by ink captured in the scratch marks grins up at him.
It's an art form that takes time and patience, said Hornfelt, a retired professor of technology at Eastern Washington University in Cheney. One slip of the steel point, and the piece is ruined, forcing him to grind off his scratches and refinish the bone, a process that can involve hours of hand sanding and polishing with progressively finer grades of sandpaper.
But Hornfelt rarely makes mistakes. Favoring the creatures of the wild -- eagles, elk and wolves -- he makes hundreds of intricate scratches to give their bodies lifelike definition.
"You've got to have the ability to go almost into a trance when you're doing an object," the lanky artist said as he practiced his craft in his garage workshop. "Because you become a part of it. Each little scratch you put down will have a purpose."
His voice trails off. For a man who spent years teaching precepts of physical science, he seems a little incredulous at the metaphysical concept he has just uttered.
"I don't know if I'm saying that right or not," he said with a shake of his head.
The sailors on the whaling ships who popularized scrimshaw might understand. Others before them in Asia and in native villages near the Arctic Circle had performed scrimshaw work, Hornfelt said, but whaling ship sailors gave the art a special flavor, scratching images of ships, sea creatures, seafaring men and the women who occupied their dreams.
Much of the early American scrimshaw work took place in the early 19th century, during whaling's heyday, Hornfelt said. It was a time when whalers often spent a year or more at sea, passing the time by scratching and coloring images on whales' teeth or whalebone.
Although Hornfelt now uses permanent India ink, shipboard artists often would color their work with soot from lamps or tobacco juice, leaving images that faded with time.
As top scrimshaw sailors improved their work, they became prized members of whaling crews, with ship captains claiming some of the artwork in exchange for raw ivory. At the end of the voyage, Hornfelt said, sale of the scrimshaw work would bring a profit for both the captain and the sailor.
The end of the whaling boom also brought about a decline of scrimshaw in the United States. It didn't die out, but artists dwindled until a resurgence in the 1960s believed to have been spurred by President John F. Kennedy's love of scrimshaw.
The growing popularity of scrimshaw, coupled with the killing of whales, elephants and other creatures for their ivory, helped bring about a 1977 international agreement restricting trade in any products from endangered species.
Hornfelt supports the ivory ban and is happy to work on pieces of antler and horn, turning out bolo tie sliders, belt buckles, pins, earrings and cribbage boards. He's been at it for perhaps 15 years, first attracted to the art by reading a magazine article on how to "spoon scrimshaw," or etch images onto plastic spoons.
His technique improved during the years, and he eventually sold his pieces in galleries. But the gallery sales brought pressure to turn out assembly-line-type work that Hornfelt found distasteful, and he decided to back off.
He has lived in Florence for a year now. After spending much of his time working around his new house, he's ready to begin producing more scrimshaw.
Hornfelt gives his artwork to family and friends, takes some orders and says he may start selling items in Florence galleries. But he'll work at his own pace, striving to make each piece different.
One of these days he'll gather enough nerve to do his masterpiece, a magnificent sailing ship on a sperm whale tooth he collected before the ivory ban. It'll be mounted on a piece of rose quartz and become a family heirloom, not for sale.
Hornfelt knows his work will outlast him, just as much of the work by the early scrimshaw artists became their legacy. And that's one reason he finds the work so satisfying.
"This is the way I guess I can leave part of me behind," he said.
The Sunday Oregonian |
by LARRY BACON
