The last of the glass eye makers

Losing an eye through illness or accident can devastate a person’s life. A “glass” eye can help some people come to terms with it, but others choose to wear them for more nuanced reasons, writes Jolyon Jenkins.

In a tiny room in a north London suburb, Jost Haas makes a glass eye.

He holds a glass tube over a bunsen burner, twirling it constantly, blows through the molten glass, and turns it into a sphere.

His patient Dan Light has only one working eye.

Haas uses coloured glass sticks to match the colour of that eye - not just the pattern of the iris, but the red veins of the sclera.

He also has to make the glass eye fit the shape of Dan’s bad eye, and there is only one chance to get it right.

This is a little gem of an article from the BBC about the last glass eye maker in Britain - the end of an era! *sniff* Whilst I admit they do freak me out a little, there’s no denying that there is also something quite beautiful about glass eyes - the skill and the artistry involved is something else.