Pete Driscoll: Scrimshaw

Pete's main career was as a commercial lithographer in the printing industry in Milwaukee. He owned and operated two very successful printing companies there, in the BC era (before Computers), when the lithographic trade was a highly skilled craft, requiring great hand-eye dexterity to produce high quality films which were used to manufacture plates used on lithographic printing presses.

Pete moved from Milwaukee to North Carolina in the late 80's, and settled in New Bern. While there, he renovated an 1885 downtown building, and in it built a loft apartment (read "bachelor pad") on the second floor, and a retail nautical gift store on the first floor, called "Captain Ratty's." The loft apartment, er, -- bachelor pad, worked only until Pete met Jo May, in 1994, and the rest, as they say, is history. They married in 1997, and he moved to Jo's home here in Bermuda Run, and now he admits, he has enjoyed life to the fullest in a community of artists, University friends - did I mentioned that Jo is a Professor and Speech-Language Pathologist? - and they are members of Centenary United Methodist Church. Pete is also VP of the Muddy River Art Association, Chair of the Visual Arts Committee at Centenary, a juried member of Associated Artists of Winston-Salem.

Pete has had his art selected to hang on the 2008 White House Christmas Tree, and his scrimshaw may be found in collectors' homes throughout the US, and he even has a piece of scrimshaw in Australia (you'll have to ask him about that!).

Through my art I hope to preserve the nearly lost art of scrimshaw. I create original pieces, as well as teach others through workshops, lectures, and hands-on demonstrations as I pass this art form on to others. It is also important for me to extend my choice of subject matter beyond what has been traditionally created. Many of my commissioned pieces are chosen by clients to add value and meaning to their lives. More than 1,600 individual pieces of my scrimshaw have been sold to art collectors across the United States and abroad. I have given numerous workshops and taught hundreds of students the fundamentals of the art of scrimshaw. In addition, I have given thousands of mini-lessons about scrimshaw at dozens of art shows throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States.

Scrimshaw is the art of engraving on ivory. My art is created in the traditional manner of the whalers. It is done completely by hand, without the use of power tools or machinery, and only on various forms of recycled, antique or fossilized ivory, legally purchased.