1. scrimshaw - Noun
2. scrimshaw - Verb
To ornament, as shells, ivory, etc., by engraving, and (usually) rubbing pigments into the incised lines.
A shell, a whale's tooth, or the like, that is scrimshawed.
Source: Webster's dictionaryIf you don't die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty of minutiae, the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean, and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music, or Neil Young. Anne Lamott
They discovered that even in the face of pain that seems unbearable, even in the face of pain that wrings the last drop of blood out of your heart and leaves its scrimshaw tracery on the inside of your skull, life goes on. And pain grows dull, and begins to fade. Poppy Z. Brite