Engraving any other way is merely scratching the surface

With the sure hands of a master engraver, George M. Bentley skillfully cut words into the bronze plate.

Periodically, when tears blurred his vision, he would pause and straighten from his concentrated crouch over his workbench. When his emotions were back in check, and his eyes clear, he continued the painstaking work.

With the task complete, he blew the last bits of filings away. Then he read the words now flawlessly joined with the russet metal.

“In loving memory. In this chapel God’s love was triumphant over hate. September 11, 2001.”

Countless visitors to St. Paul’s Chapel next to Ground Zero in Manhattan have read these words, now affixed to the base of a cross. In the months following the terrorist attacks that resulted in the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the chapel served a multitude of recovery workers as a place to rejuvenate body and spirit.

Renowned metal artists Frederic A. Crist and David W. Munn fashioned the cross from a piece of floor and structural steel from Tower One. The cross, as well as Bentley’s masterly engraving, have received praise both in print and with heartfelt spoken words.

“That was a very difficult piece for me to do,” Bentley said recently as he and a visitor to his Albemarle County shop looked at a photograph of the cross. “It’s still difficult for me to talk about.

“To get that close to the gravity and immensity of the emotional impact of what occurred there was intense. I’m proud to be able to contribute to something that cherishes the memory, but at the same time, when you realize why you’re doing it, it sets you back.”

For more than 20 years, Bentley has been plying the engraver’s art in traditional fashion — by hand. That’s not to say he doesn’t use modern equipment such as a microscope to better see the minuscule fields he often has to work on.

But when it comes to moving the cutting edge of a graver into and through metal, Bentley works strictly by hand. His method has become increasingly rare since the advent of computerized engraving machines.

When machines just won’t do the job

Modern technology has sped up the process of engraving, and renders very nice work. Still, Bentley feels something essential to true art is lost when a passionless machine is used.

“What I said a number of years ago, and it remains just as true today, is the difference between engraving by hand and machine engraving is a question of aesthetics,” Bentley said.

“The difference being: one comes from the soul through the hand, whereas the machine follows the template with a stylus. One is a work of art, the other a mechanical reproduction.”

There are also complex surfaces that will stymie a machine. An example is the Shakespeare Cup, which the University of Virginia gives occasionally for literary excellence.

“To engrave the cup, you have to work on a complex radial surface,” said Bentley, who relishes the challenges the art form presents in limitless variations. “The beauty of a job like this is that the surface is constantly changing in front of you on every single plane.

“So you have to accommodate that as you’re working. And because there’s a stem on the cup, you have to actually cut half the job backward, because you can’t rotate the tool through it.

“The nuances brought to that kind of work can’t be accomplished by machine. It has to be accomplished by a hand and a mind.”

One of Bentley’s specialties is engraving heraldic symbols and elements onto family crests and coats of arms. He often cuts these images into signet rings.

A crest remains unchanged, because it identifies the root name of the family. However, a coat of arms can change, because its symbolism reflects the individual so as to distinguish that person from all others.

“When someone comes to me to do a coat of arms I ask them for whatever information they have on their family,” Bentley said. “Then I ask them what makes this particular member of the family, or generation, different.

“I’ll ask them what symbol they would use to represent who they are. Designing the piece is a collaboration between the person and myself. Finding out that little bit of information that nobody else in the world has, and then using it in some meaningful way, is to me what engraving is about and what it’s for.”

Discovering a creative life’s calling

Bentley learned the intricacies of design at the Rhode Island School of Design’s School of Architecture, where he earned a degree in industrial design. After graduating in 1983, he followed his mother’s sound advice.

“My mother had a small jewelry and antiquity shop in Door County, Wisconsin,” said Bentley, who owns a fine arts gallery there.

“She suggested I become a jeweler, because that would allow me to work with precious materials, work one-on-one with clients and be able to do design work.

“So I apprenticed for three years as a bench jeweler at Jose Grant of Stamford, Connecticut. When the lady doing their engraving work got carpal tunnel, I started doing it.

“I quickly realized how much time is invested in getting the result you want. There’s nothing fast about hand engraving.”

Bentley then traveled to Little Rock, Ark., to study under master engraver Tilden Swenson. Since then he has been perfecting his craft.

Art Beltrone met Bentley years ago when the engraver often dropped by his shop, which specialized in historic military artifacts.

“George liked to see anything with engraving on it, whether it was a Civil War sword or an example of 20th-century engraving,” said Beltrone, a widely respected military artifacts historian.

“It quickly became evident to me that he was very interested in learning as much as possible about engraving styles. What impressed me the most about him was that he approached this with such a passion.

“He wanted to learn the techniques and be able to identify various regional engraving styles. Now, after many years of study and practice, he has become a master at doing things like engraving a piece in a style typical of the 17th century.”

Although Bentley says he continues to learn and better his craftsmanship every day, he proved he had reached the level of master engraver in the early 1990s.

At the time, Paul F. Fisk, founder of the Clock Shop of Virginia, was in the process of making a one-of-a-kind grandfather clock that ultimately would weigh 265 pounds and stand more than 9 feet high.

Fisk commissioned master furniture makers Joel Borenstein and his wife, Bari, to make the mahogany case, which is inlaid with holly wood and dyed veneer. The large metal face of the clock involved very fine engraving, and that job went to Bentley.

“George was the only one who would even attempt it,” Fisk said.

“When he showed me the end work, I was very impressed with the exquisite detail and fine artwork going around the chapter ring.

“His work is super grand. There’s other engravers who can do great work, but I’m not sure anybody can beat George Bentley.”

The clock became Fisk’s masterwork, winning five gold medals in 1993 at the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors’ annual crafts show.

One of the medals went to Bentley for his engraving work.

The judging was based on a scale from zero to 100. Points were deducted for things the judges thought could have been done better.

“The president of the association at the time was also one of the judges,” Bentley said.

“He came over to me and said they had gone over the face of the clock with a fine-tooth comb and they couldn’t find anything wrong with it.

“He then told me it was the first time they had awarded 100 points in any category. The scariest part for me when I was actually doing the work was engraving Paul’s signature on it.

“The pressure I had to use in order to get that one pass was such that I envisioned the tool breaking and sliding across the surface of the dial.

“In engraving you can’t make a mistake. If you do, you’re done.”

Bentley is planning to start offering engraving classes at his workshop. The one thing he won’t be able to teach is the passion he brings to his craft, and occasionally causes tears to well in his eyes.

“In my opinion, passion is what makes whatever the artisan is doing stand out,” Bentley said.

“The intensity with which they feel that passion will show up in the work.

“But to get that kind of result, I think you have to live and breathe what you do.”

To learn more about Bentley and his work visit his Web site at http://www.bentleyhandengraver.com.