February 18, 1998
Master of a lost art
Engraver designs ornate glass pieces
By Steve Kellman
Record-Eagle staff writer
A century-old grinding wheel with wooden pulleys and a leather belt ties Richard Bruening to a historic - and fading - tradition.
Bruening, part owner of the Stained Glass Cabinet Company in Acme, uses the wheel to engrave ornate designs into panes of glass and goblets. He is one of a handful of practitioners of the centuries-old art form, working on a machine that was handed down to him through three generations of master engravers.
Bruening's M-72 store is filled with examples of his work. Lamp shades circled by frosted grape vines bearing intricate leaves and thick clusters of fruit hang from the ceiling. Wedding goblets with a couple's initials and profiles of lovebirds etched into the side sit on tables and shelves, along with oak-frame jewelry boxes engraved with wildlife and nautical scenes.
Bruening performs the work on a machine built in Stuttgart, Germany, in the late 1800s. It was brought to the United States and used in an engraving factory in Cambridge, Ohio, source of much of the country's glass engraving for decades. The factory was originally powered by water from the nearby Ohio River, Bruening said.
With a decline in the popularity of the art, the number of glass engravers has plummeted in the United States, Bruening said. He knows of only two others in Michigan.
Now much of the world's engraving takes place in impoverished countries like Poland, where workers make much less than their U.S. counterparts, he said.
"That's why you see a decanter and six mugs for 20 bucks at Target," he said. "The Third World labor has taken it away from the master craftsmen. ... If you look closely, it's more scratched and the leaves don't meet the stems."
Bruening learned the craft over 11 years from Al Tavernier, who had worked at the glass mills in Cambridge, like his father and grandfather before him. The Taverniers cut glass for companies including Fostoria and Lenox.
The two met at a craft show where Tavernier was demonstrating engraving. They struck up a friendship over their shared passions of fishing and harmonica playing.
"We don't play that well but we know the same songs," Bruening said.
Bruening apprenticed with Tavernier for five summers. When Tavernier stopped doing engraving nine years ago, he sold the machine to Bruening, who has it set up by a window in the store's workshop. With the pulleys and belt now powered by an electric motor, the machine uses a dozen different stones to carve thin stems, broad leaf and feather shapes and circles into the glass.
Bruening will design etchings to match drawings, pictures, the patterns on wallpaper or fabric samples. He embellishes some of the glass work with flowers grown by his wife, Sue. Whenever he uses flowers, he also inserts a cherry blossom into the work to symbolize the region's agricultural heritage.
He's not above using high-tech gadgetry when it helps the design process. He will scan customers' sketches or pictures into a computer and scale them up or down to create a pattern that is sand-blown or drawn on the glass.
Bruening works quickly from there, bending over the spinning wheel and dragging the glass across its surface in fluid motions, the stone biting smoothly into the glass. He leaves some areas with the frosted finish that the stones create, and uses a cork wheel to polish other carved areas clear.
Because there are so few practitioners left, Bruening has a virtual lock on the market.
The Stained Glass Cabinet Company is regularly called on to produce customized plaques and trophies for area awards programs. For the past 10 years, the store has provided custom mugs and trophies for the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Administrators Association, which is meeting this March at the Grand Traverse Resort.
In 1986, the store won a commission to produce gifts handed out to state governors during a National Governor's Association conference held in Traverse City in 1987. Using the grinding wheel, Bruening produced monogrammed jewelry boxes for each governor.
Bruening is modest about his work; his partner, Scott Johnson, is not.
"Richard won't tell you this but I will," Johnson says when Bruening steps away for coffee. "Al was a craftsman, Richard's an artist, and you can really tell the difference."