An eye for detail: these Burlington ocularists can't make the blind see again, but they do make artificial eyes that help patients feel whole.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: PICTURE THIS

When someone loses an eye, more than vision is lost. "Some patients may feel incomplete," ocularist Anna Jefferson says. Artist, craftsman and technician, she's one of a quartet of family members who make artificial eyes at Burlington-based Carolina Eye Prosthetics Inc. "Sometimes when 1 finish, my mom wants to know, 'Did you make that person happy?' I tell her, 'I can't do that. But the eye I made certainly looked good.'"

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Patrick Boyd, her father and an ex-Navy officer, started the business in 1987. He learned the craft from brother Michael Boyd, who had picked it up in their native Iowa, after moving to North Carolina to work for AT&T. They chose Burlington because it's in the middle of the state and offered a low cost of living. The business is one of only about 300 worldwide that make artificial eyes, says Cathi Guerrero, executive director of the American Society of Ocularists in Bakersfield, Calif. "I'd say the majority are family businesses." For good reason, says Jefferson, 30, who apprenticed under her father and uncle. 'There's no school for this. There's just not enough demand." Most patients live within a three-hour drive, but some have come from as far as Washington state.

Jefferson, her father and her sister, Emma Nadolski, 33, who recently began her apprenticeship, first make an impression of a patient's eye socket, which they use to make a mold in dental stone, similar to plaster. Wax is poured in the mold, and after it hardens, it's trimmed and sculpted to make a pattern for the prosthetic eye. Perhaps most critical is fitting the iris button, which is embedded in the wax pattern. "It establishes the direction of the gaze," Jefferson says. If it's off, the eyes will appear to look in different directions. "For the first three months 1 did this, I wondered whether I could ever do it. It's pretty daunting."

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Like a tailored suit, the wax model is trimmed or augmented and shaped in the socket. The process involves little or no discomfort, because the prosthetic eye isn't fitted until six to eight weeks after enucleation--surgical removal of an eye. Surgery isn't performed at Carolina Eye, which is considered a durable medical-equipment provider--prosthetic limbs are in the same category--rather than a medical practice. Typically, adult patients lose eyes to accidents, diseases such as...