ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 11, 1996 TAG: 9601110059
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NATURAL BRIDGE
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
They are abnormal, really, John Milton Smith's hands, like granite against the winds of a hurricane. Hands so flawlessly steady, in fact, that any sensible diamond cutter would give his right arm to have them. Gifts are what they are - gifts from the gods of copper wheel crystal engraving.
Only the gods didn't stop there.
They also gave John Milton Smith eyes like a pair of magnifying glasses with pupils - intensely blue, blessedly precise and able to detect the finest details of a hummingbird in flight. To one-thousandth of an inch.
Eyes that are ideal companions to his unshakably steady hands.
And then there is his heart.
Its beat, Smith says, isn't entirely involuntary. He can control it, slow it down if needed, to further stabilize his grip, and further concentrate his focus. It's the perfect metronome for a man who knows that when he labors over his art and his engraving wheel, the slightest twitch can cause the work to blow up in his face.
Literally.
Smith works with the finest lead crystal the world has to offer. His skill is in engraving these pieces with the most intricate of artwork. The risk is that crystal can explode, destroying in an instant what can be hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars worth of work.
In other words, it is not like engraving softball trophies. It's delicate business, best left to someone with Smith's uniquely suited gifts.
``There's no margin of error allowed,'' he said. ``Your hands are the jig. You slip, you lose. You get tired, you're ruined. Simple as that. I can actually time my heartbeat to the machine. That's why I don't get any shake or wobble.''
If only Smith didn't sound so much like vintage John Candy. He even looks a little like the late comedian. It's spooky. It's also a little unsettling, the idea of John Candy behind the copper wheel of a crystal engraving machine.
Particularly when he's wearing an elk suit. But more on that later.
First, some background on Smith and the art of copper wheel crystal engraving, which is so named because a copper wheel is used to do the engraving. As it rotates, the engraver's job is to press the crystal against the wheel and lightly etch an image into its surface.
All by hand.
It is an art form, according to Smith, that dates back hundreds of years, to a time when kings and queens courted the best crystal engravers as if they were royalty themselves. It was a skill passed down with great pride from father to son, through generations.
Smith, however, doesn't come from a noble line of engravers.
He comes from New Jersey.
His father was a dairy farmer near Morristown, where Smith, 44, grew up fighting the frustration of dyslexia. Handicapped in school, he eventually found liberation in art and drawing. He attended art school and excelled - not surprisingly - in very precisely detailed air brush painting.
Recognizing Smith's exceptionally steady hands, a teacher suggested crystal engraving and recommended him for a tryout at the Corning Inc. factory, in Corning, N.Y. That's where the world's best lead crystal, Steuben, is manufactured. The company also has a staff of engravers there.
Smith visited Corning in 1973 and was asked to engrave a stemmed glass with a design of his choosing. He decided on a dragonfly. Corning's engravers were impressed. But before he could be hired, he was told, he needed to spend as many as 12 years studying the craft and working as an apprentice in Europe. He also learned that Americans generally were excluded from the few apprenticeships available.
Discouraged, but not defeated, Smith set out to master the art form on his own.
``I figured I was given this talent for a reason, so I should do it,'' he said.
He built his own crude copper wheel lathe, using an old washing machine motor. He first tried engraving plain glass, but it shattered under the pressure of the lathe.
``I found that crystal was the way to go because of the softness of it,'' Smith explained.
Steuben crystal is 36-percent lead oxide - that's the property that provides the softness - and is formed at a temperature of 3,000 degrees, hotter than a volcano.
Smith buys his crystal directly from Corning. He also works with Baccarat crystal from France. The pieces alone can be pricey, ranging from $200 for a simple pendant to $2,000 or more for a 16-inch bowl weighing 10 pounds. And it's time-consuming work. Smith can spend 40 hours on a small pendant. On larger pieces, he has labored sometimes for more than 500 hours.
``It's not your general hobby type of work,'' he said.
At the same time, Smith has never been able to turn his art into a full-time occupation. He has had successes. In 1979, he was commissioned to engrave a piece for President Carter and the Camp David Peace Accords with Egypt and Israel. And he said his work has been shown regularly at art galleries in New York.
But there is an understandably limited market for Smith's costly creations. One gallery listed one of his pieces at $120,000, he said. It's similarly understandable, then, that Smith is one of only about 40 artists in the world who work in crystal engraving.
To help support himself, Smith has worked an assortment of jobs, many of them with plant nurseries, reflecting just one of his many interests beyond engraving. The books stacked on his work bench reflect this certain renaissance quality. Among the selections: ``All About Orchids,'' ``Parakeets of the World,'' ``The International Encyclopedia of Aviation,'' ``The Book of Opals,'' ``Bamboo,'' ``Fix Your Volkswagen'' and ``Lionel Trains (A Standard of the World).''
This is where the elk comes in. Smith, who also possesses an interest in frontier living, sews most of his own clothes from elk leather. His Rockbridge County home is revealing as well, with the distinctive stick fence that Smith fashioned after a fence he spotted in an old western.
He moved to Virginia in 1993 with his wife, Carol, partly to escape New Jersey. Carol works for First Union Bank in Roanoke. They have no children, so there will be nobody for Smith to pass along his natural gift to. That worries him.
He said copper wheel engraving is being replaced more and more by other methods of etching glass. As a result, fewer and fewer people are carrying on the tradition. And few are as young as Smith. That's why he believes that what he's doing is important.
``Crystal engraving has been around for 500 years, but at the rate it's going now, it'll be dead in 50 years,'' he said. ``I feel like it could become a lost art.''
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Keith Graham/Staff. 1. It took John Milton Smith moreby CNBthan 500 hours to engrave this 16-inch Stueben crystal bowl. Smith
also makes some of his own clothing, like the elkskin shirt he is
wearing. 2. It takes rock-steady hands (above) to make the delicate
engravings in a piece of crystal. 3. Smith's copper wheel lathe
(left) is home made and uses a motor from an old washing machine. 4.
This lion head pendant is another example of Smith's handiwork. 5.
Wearing an elkskin jacket he sewed, john Milton Smith stands beside
the stick fence he built in his front yard. color.