Artist and Ocularist Michael Hughes replaces what disease or accident takes

Making an eye for an eyeHe serves some 800people through theoffice he maintains parttime in Roanoke.

By Jeff SturgeonTHE ROANOKE TIMES

THE ROANOKE TIMES

BUSINESSTUESDAY, SEPTEBEER 5, 2000

Michael Hughes holds sampling of the prosthetic eye he makes. Although people in rural areas havea high degree of eye loss through accidents, most people lose eyes as a result of disease. The eye attop woud be for a patient who has had a tumor removed.

ERIC BRADY / THE ROANAKE TIMES

His work might conjure upthe macabre, or nervouslaughter, but MichaelHughes takes his crafting ofartificial eyes for thousandsof Virginia patients quiteseriously.

“The situations sur-rounding it are tragic,” saidHughes, who recentlybegan to see patients parttime in Roanoke. As for thework itself, “I love it,” hesaid.

Here, beauty is in theeye of the molder.

The northern Virginiaeye-maker, one of two ocu-larists in Virginia, moldsand then paints false eyeswith uncanny realism.Although based in NorthernVirginia, he has an exten-sive practice in southwestVirginia, home to about 800of his 5,000 patients.

His shingle says“Artificial Eye Clinic,” butto Hughes’ patients, hegives them somethingmore. He gives them theirown face back.

The American Academyof Ophthalmology esti-mates that nationwide17,000 to 18,000 people ayear lose an eye. Rural

areas tend to have highereye-loss rates than urbanareas, Hughes said, becauseof dangerous industrialwork and outdoor activity.

By that measure, there’snothing unusual aboutSouthwest Virginia having800 artificial eye wearers,he said. Overall, however,more eyes are lost to dis-

eases such as cancer, dia-betes and glaucoma than toaccidents.

One of his clients wasstruck in the eye by a cueball hurled at him the nightbefore his wedding. A littleboy accidentally pokedhimself with scissors. A lit-tle girl was snapped in theeye by a bungee cord.

Children born without eyes,cancer patients, dog bite vic-tims and suicide-attempt sur-vivors have all leaned back inhis chair.

And yet he isnot a doctor.Hughes, 39,has a fine artsdegree and for-mal training inmaking pros-thetics of thehead, whichcovers eye-

making and the sculpture ofprosthetic ears, noses andother facial parts.

He has worked at a veter-ans hospital, practiced pri-vately in Philadelphia and forthe past nine years has beenself-employed in Vienna witha second office inCharlottesville.

Appreciative patientssend not only his fee of

$1,700 to $2,500, but giftssuch as alcohol and food.“One woman let me haveher summer home over theEastern Shore of Virginiafor a week.”

Most medical insuranceplans and Medicare pay forfalse eyes, which are con-sidered medical equipment,Hughes said. Medicaid, thestate’s medical aid programfor the poor, by policy pur-chases eyes for children andminors under 21, butrequires adults to show amedical or mental-healthneed, said Dennis Smith,director of the Departmentof Medical AssistanceServices, which runsMedicaid.

Hughes obtained hislarge caseload in southwestVirginia, in part, by assum-ing the practice of NewCastle Ocularist Langdon

Henderlite, who retired in1999 and gave Hughes allhis records.

To spare these patientsa long drive to see him,Hughes recently scheduleda monthly work day at theCarilion Roanoke Mem-orial Hospital Rehabilita-tion Center in Roanoke.The profession is small.The American Society ofOcularists, the national pro-fessional group, countsonly 225 members.

Hughes said “kooks”occasionally contact hisoffice and request eyes forpuppets and pets. He hasspotted eyes keychains andsuspects some fellow eye-makers produce them assouvenirs.

Hughes is willing toshare a light-hearted storyor two about his clients, buthates seeing anyone treatfalse eyes in a casual orcomic light.

Some people who needan artificial eye can’t affordthem, he said. They havebeen to his office and hadto be turned away. Forthose people to go withoutwhile others wear them onkey chains, “I think it’skind of in low taste,”Hughes said.

He estimates he hasmade and installed 4,500false eyes during an 18-year career, many of themfor patients deep inanguish. They are crying,depressed and horrified bythe double whammy of lossof vision and loss ofappearance.

“I just can’t imagine myson going to school withone [eye],” said a Roanoke

Valley woman, who spokeon the condition she not beidentified to protect her sonfrom ridicule. “If we did nothave this and it didn’t lookso close to being real, I justcan’t see him as living anormal life.”

However, according toHughes, “some people canshake it.”

His patients golf, huntand drive. Though he won’tidentify the airline, he saidone patient pilots large,commercial passenger air-liners out of WashingtonDulles International Air-port. The pilot’s employerknows about her artificialeye, Hughes said.

“It’s a disability if youwant to make it one,”Hughes said.

He might be thinking ofpatient Paul Buford Jr., 67,of Roanoke, who lost aneye in an air-rifle accidentas a boy.

“I’m doing fine. I’vehad this thing since 13,”said Buford, who is retiredfrom banking. “We wereplaying cops and robbersand I was robbing abank….I jumped at him,”Buford said.

His friend reflexivelyfired, shattering Buford’sright eye. It was 1946.Buford recently got Hughesprosthetic after wearinganother Ocularist’s workfor many years.

Buford, who lacksdepth perception and whosevision side-to-side is a thirdreduced, said he does notconsider himself handi-capped.

“I can do everything,”he said. “I can catch a base-

Hughes

Paul Buford, patient of Michael Hughes, has had a false eye eversince a friend with a BB gun shot out his right eye when he was 13.He said some of his friends don’t know he has it.

ERIC BRADY / THE ROANAKE TIMES

ball, or used to.”The hardest part of wear-

ing a false eye may be deal-ing with slippage, a rare butawkward occurrence.

One of Hughes’ patients,who lost his false eye riding aroller coaster at Paramount’sKings Dominion, returnedafter he park closed to lookfor it with attendants. Oneattendant announced he hadfound the false eye, but whenHughes’ patient went over toretrieve it, he discovered theattendant had found someoneelse’s false eye. Because ofthe risk of loss, many false-eye wearers have a spare.

‘I just can’t imagine myson going to school withone [eye]. If we did nothave this…. I just cant

see him as living anormal life.’

ROANOKE VALLEY MOTHERWHO REQUESTED ANONYMITY

Located most of hiscareer in or near a big city,Hughes has made eyes forcelebrities and well-knownpersonalities. He did one forthe late Arizona congressman

Morris Udall. He didn’twant to identify any othersin case their fans don’tknow.

Most patients are morelike Brandon Clark, the 16-month-old son of a LeeCounty construction work-er.

The child was born withan undeveloped eye.Doctors, who had neverseen the condition before,referred parents Gene andChristie Clark to Hughesfor help. “I was scared todeath until I talked to himabout it,” Christie Clarksaid. Hughes fitted Brandonwith a blank prosthetic toexpand the eye socket andlater made the boy an artifi-cial eye. The youngster willget a slightly larger oneevery six months.

Most people can’t tellBrandon wears a prosthetic.

“They say, ‘He has pret-ty eyes,’” Christie Clarksaid, beaming.

The couple used todrive nearly six hours to seeHughes in Charlottesville.Hughes’ Roanoke officehours cut their drive in half.The next door closestOcularist they could haveused was in Nashville.

When a person losessight from an eye disease orinjury, an ophthalmologistusually removes the eye andreplaces it with an artificialeyeball, called an implant.The implant sits toward theback of the eye socket toleave room for the cup-shaped false eye to ride infront. When he gets thepatient, Hughes fills the eyesocket containing theimplant with a thick sub-stance like the molding com-pound dentist used to takeimpressions of the teeth. Heuses the eye-socket impres-sion to make wax model andthen a mold for casting thefalse eye in a hard, virtuallyunbreakable acrylic.

Before casting, theOcularist paints the pupil,iris and white on a curvedplastic base which will beinserted into the cast beforecompletion.

After additional paint-ing, he cements tiny redthreads to the fake eyeball tosimulate the blood-vesselpattern in the patient’s goodeye. The nearly finished arti-ficial eye is sealed with aclear, protective coating andbuffed to a wet-lookingappearance. Once slipped inplace, the prosthesis is heldby the eyelids. The wearer’stear ducts bathe the false eyein moisture, and the eyelidstill blinks, making the pros-thetic self-cleaning.

Because the eye implantcan be attached to the eyemuscles – and the false eyeis sometimes pegged to theimplant – the blind eyemoves convincingly with thegood one.

“I’ve had wives whonever told their husbands,”

Some of Michael Hughes’ prosthetic eyes await fitting sessions withpatients.

ERIC BRADY / THE ROANAKE TIMES

Hughes said.When people can’t spot

Hughes’ handiwork, heknows he has succeeded forthe patient.

“The average guy wantto blend,” Hughes said.

To learn more on theWeb about artificial eyes,see Ocularist.org.

This article (also) ran in thefollowing newspapers:Washington TimesRichmond Times: DispatchFredericksburg GazetteThe Virginia-Pilot