Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
By COLIN M. STEWART
Tribune-Herald staff writer
It all began 26 years ago with an innocuous-looking little cardboard box.
The discolored and dusty starter kit carton sits now on a shelf in Robert Weiss’ Hamakua Coast garage among dozens of books with titles like “Gales, Ice and Men,” “Sail Ho!” and “The Polar Hunters” — research material for a hobby that grew into a passion and a full-time job.
“I grew up in New England, and some of my family lived on Cape Cod,” Weiss said. “Someone sent me this scrimshaw kit as a gift. Inside was a blade, some sandpaper … and these tiny whale’s teeth. I did a bear on one side, don’t ask me why, and a square rigger (sailing ship) on the other. … And I was hooked.”
Known as a scrimshander, Weiss practices an art form that largely died out once the whaling industry had very nearly hunted sperm whales into extinction.
Whalers in the 1700s and 1800s would head out to sea on expeditions that could last for years at a time, and crewmen often found themselves with nothing to do during their down time. Using methods devised to perform shipboard repairs, they would sand down sperm whale teeth, walrus tusks or other forms of ivory, and then using knives and even sewing needles, they would carve intricate designs on them to pass the time. Ink or other substances would be applied and wiped from the smooth surface to bring their designs into relief against the bright white of the ivory.
The best examples are truly a sight to behold, and something that photography can’t quite do justice. Usually depicting breaching whales, tall sailing ships, portraits of marine legends and other seafaring subjects, the brightly polished works are intricate in their detail, solid and substantial to the touch, and marvelously textured, with the images bending and rolling with the natural curves of the ivory.
Upon commercial whaling’s disastrous depletion of worldwide whale populations and the ensuing bans on whaling, the art form began to wane. Now, the remaining, legal scrimshanders must take great care in choosing the materials they work with. Weiss, who is a member of Greenpeace, says he has nothing but love and respect for the creatures that supplied the materials for his art, and he will only use ivory that was harvested before bans were put in place.
“I have to be careful about who I do work for. I require all my customers to supply me with paperwork to show where the ivory came from,” he said. “It has to have documentation, and it must be legal.”
When first learning the art form, Weiss spent years using a type of faux ivory similar to a heavy plastic, until he felt he was good enough to work on more expensive, rarer materials. Surprisingly, perhaps the most plentiful form of ivory he uses comes from 10,000- to 30,000-year-old sources, he said.
“Wooly mammoth is the easiest to get ahold of,” he said. “The Russians are like the DeBeers of mammoth ivory, and they almost have more than they know what to do with.”
The process of preparing the ivory and engraving an image onto it can take anywhere from a few days to weeks and even months, Weiss said. It’s finely detailed work that requires sharp eyes, a steady hand and patience, patience, patience.
“Especially when you’re doing stippling work,” he said. “You’re just tapping for hours. … You have to be careful not to hit the same place twice.”
Stippling involves using a point like a needle to tap small holes into the surface of the ivory. The more holes you tap, the darker the shading. Carving lines and designs is done with an Exacto blade, tracing over a pencil outline. After such careful, exacting work, the application of the ink is a decidedly casual affair. Weiss swabs a dollop of ink to cover an area and then wipes it off with a cloth wetted with a little water or spit.
“Spit is my special ingredient,” he said with a laugh.
For people seeking advice, Weiss provides a detailed description of his process and the materials he uses on his website, www.marinearts.com.
Within the marine art world, Weiss is widely considered one of the top scrimshaw artists, and his work is featured in a number of galleries and websites.
Most recently, a portrait he carved of his parents-in-law was selected for exhibition at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center’s Schaefer Portrait Challenge 2012. He is also one of only two marine artists to have won the prestigious Rudolph J. Schaefer Maritime Heritage Award three times.
In addition to a long list of honors and awards, Weiss’ scrimshaw work is in high demand and fetches top prices. One of his scrimmed whale’s teeth sold at auction for a record-setting $40,000. For the last five years, he said, he’s had a backlog of commissioned pieces he’s been working on.
A former art director and graphic designer on the mainland East Coast, Weiss works in other formats, including sketching and a recent passion — plein air painting. His work can be found at the One Gallery in Hilo and the Woodshop Gallery in Honomu.
In the interest of full disclosure, Weiss is the husband of Tribune-Herald advertising account executive Gail Hamasu.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.