SCRIMSHAW ARTIST

View all Darrel Morris scrimshaw pieces

I can’t remember a time when art wasn’t a part of my life. It has always been there, driving me to create something, anything. My earliest childhood memories are full of coloring and painting on any surface I could find. I drew on everything, paper, the furniture and the walls. Nothing was safe from my early creative explorations. As I grew older the passion stayed with me, and as I grow older it is still there. It is an obsession. I studied art formally for five years and explored many media, but I always come back to the monochromatic techniques. It is, for me, the best way to express pure form, without the distraction of color. Although I still work in many media, scrimshaw is my primary medium. I discovered it in 1987 while working in a cutlery shop. I purchased some scrap ivory from Bob Engnath in 1988, and won my first competition at the Knife Expo in 1989. Since then, I have continually sought to not only improve my work, but to push the boundaries of the medium to new levels.