Can We Help?: Artificial eyes: how are they made?

Close-up of a glass eye

PETER ROWSTHORN

Terry, from Queenscliff, New South Wales has written in asking 'Are glass eyes of really made of glass?' Well, what a weird question, Terry, but interesting nonetheless. To find out, I've come to an…

Peter reads the brass plate on the wall next to him — 'Artificial Eye Services. Paul Geelan. Ocularist.'

..an ocl…an orcle…an ocre… An Artificial Eye Service Centre.

A woman paints an artificial eye

PETER ROWSTHORN

Jenny Geeland is one of a handful of ocularists in Australia.

PETER ROWSTHORN

Are they made of glass?

JENNY GEELAND

They used to be made of glass. They all used be made of glass until the Second World War, when all the good glass used to come out of Germany and because it wasn't available around the world outside of Germany, some very clever dental technicians came up with the techniques of making artificial eyes out of acrylics, which they were making the dentures out of at the time.

PETER ROWSTHORN

These days 90% of the world's artificial eyes are made of acrylic.

JENNY GEELAND

They don't break when they're dropped, and they can be fitted specifically to fit the eye socket, whereas a glass eye is blown to a generic shape.

PETER ROWSTHORN

As for the shape, now, I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I thought they'd look like a normal eye.

JENNY GEELAND

They never have been spherical. About 15-20 years ago, they have developed some very good implants, that go in the back of the eye socket, so it's a round ball that fills in most of the shape of the eye socket. And the artificial eye that we make is quite a thin shell which fits over the implant in the back of the eye socket. The implant has the muscles attached to it, and so you find that all the artificial eyes these days do have very good movement unless there's been some sort of heavy trauma to the eye socket.

PETER ROWSTHORN

As artificial eyes are individually tailored, the process of making them is labour-intensive. Once an impression of the eye socket is made, the ocularist and patient have a sitting, just like a portrait artist, where the iris is painted. This produces an iris button, which is then embedded into a white mould derived from the impression. This mould is then painted in intricate detail.

Jenny examine's Peter's eye

JENNY GEELAND

There's also tones of blues and purples and yellows and in the white of your eyes there are some gentle veins. So I need to put all of those in today.

PETER ROWSTHORN

Gee… sounds intense. Sounds like they're a mess. Gee.

Vision of Jenny at work

PETER ROWSTHORN

There are no courses for ocularists. Both Jenny and her brother Paul were taught the art by their mother. In such a rare field, it's no surprise, they're in demand internationally.

JENNY GEELAND

Paul goes to the Philippines and Bahrain and he is also starting clinics in Dubai and Malaysia.

PETER ROWSTHORN

You'd be stockpiling your brown eyes then.

JENNY GEELAND

Yes.

PETER ROWSTHORN

So, Terry, in answer to your question, apart from a small market for glass eyes in Germany and a few other pockets around the world, these days glass eyes should be renamed 'acrylic eyes'.

Peter holds his finished glass eye

PETER ROWSTHORN

Wow, look at that. My own third eye. Imagine how wise I'll be now.