Auction details
9:00 AM PT - Feb 20th, 2012
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Scrimshaw, 'Caribou' by John Majak, Alaska - Ancient Mammoth ivory engraved with a portrait of a caribou, attached to a wooden stand with green felt applied to bottom. Nameplate 'Handcrafted By John Majak, North Pole, Alaska'.
Size: Ivory: 3-3/8" W X 3-5/8" H X 1/2" Thick Diameter of Stand: 4.25" Weight: 1lb 4oz Condition: Excellent The art of scrimshaw — carving and painting on ivory — dates back to the mid-1700s and the whalers roaming the seas at that time. These stout souls used whale’s teeth, baleen, walrus tusks and even bones to tell the tales of their voyages and adventures.The art of scrimshaw still survives today. John Majak is a Fairbanks, Alaska artist specializing in the intensely detailed art. Though most forms of ivory are now illegal to obtain, mammoth and other ivories more than 10,000 years old are unregulated. Such ivory — Majak’s usual medium — still washes up on beaches or pops out of stream banks occasionally in Alaska.“It’s getting harder all the time,” Majak said. “Goldminers find it or you see it on the rivers. Some people have had it in their houses for years. There’s still some from Russia. They are still picking up a lot in Siberia.”In the early days, scrimshaw featured almost exclusively maritime scenes, boats, sailors, whales and other marine life. It was a way of passing time for the seamen, and they carved what was familiar to their lifestyle. Eventually the art form came to include other images, non-sailing structures, wildlife and the assorted flora or fauna of an area. Majak focuses on Alaska wildlife, with moose, caribou, wolves, sheep, eagles and bears, sometimes adding the proper background habitat to “give you the sense of it being an Alaska scene.” His body of work continues to grow, recently including swans, cranes and chickadees. “New things keep me interested, so I’m always developing new scenes and designs,” he said. Majak has been a scrimshander for almost 20 years. He discovered the art form while taking a drawing course at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Majak’s tightly detailed drawing style lent itself to scrimshaw. Majak doesn’t draw but rather carves his images into the ivory, working with drill bits sanded down to needle points or with No. 11 X-Acto knives. But before Majak carves anything, the ivory must be prepared. Most old ivory is dark on the outside. Majak begins by sanding a window into the surface to reach a white layer. Sanding continues with progressively higher grit paper until the ivory is smooth. A final buffing brings out a glossy shine, and only then does the carving begin. Much of the work is so fine that Majak works with magnifying glasses. A 3- to 4-inch piece of scrimshaw can take more than 20 hours to complete. And if Majak makes a mistake, he has to start over — at the sanding stage. “You try not to do that. With scrimshaw you can go darker but it’s hard to go lighter,” he said. “You really have to proceed slowly with the whole process. Making mistakes, you can sometimes cover it up, but if not you might have to sand it all down and start all over again. You really hate to do that.” Once complete, Majak rubs paint or ink into the lines, revealing the image. “When you’re scratching in the ivory, you’re incising very small lines,” he explained. “When you rub in ink or paint, it will stay in the lines but won’t stay on the polished surface.” Majak’s work can be found in Fairbanks, but also in Anchorage, Homer, Denali National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine — a place where many early Yankee whalers laid to port with their scrimshaw. “I’m self-taught,” he said. “A lot of it has been by trial and error. ”An examination of the depth and intricate detail of his work, however, makes it clear the humble Majak has the art of scrimshaw more than figured out. Condition reportexcellent, with no issues
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