It took years to get to this place in the forefront of one of the world's most obscure professions. No, not just years. Let's be precise. It took generations of German craftsmen bent low over workshop tables. Painstaking hours of detailed work to get it just right. Perfectionism. Discipline passed down from grandfather to father to son. All in the pursuit of one goal: to build the perfect simulation of a human eye.
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The Ocularist
It's an odd trade, for sure. The payoff for fifth-generation eye maker Willie Danz is the magic moment when he sees 'the breathtaking whole.' By Tracie White
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Willie Danz continues the quest--his workshop tables are white countertops in an office in a San Francisco high-rise. What else could you do as a descendant of Ludwig Muller-Uri, the German craftsman renowned for perfecting the glass eye in the 1800s in the famous glassmaking town of Lauscha, Germany--the same quaint town where Danz's forefathers learned the eye-making trade. When your father, who emigrated from Lauscha, rode the trains from one American city to the next fitting artificial eyes into the sockets of the wounded and disabled during World War II. And when the two older brothers you looked up to chose to continue the craft.
What else can you do when you can claim five generations of eye makers in your family? (His grandmother's uncle and grandfather also made eyes. His brother Ted has passed away, but his stepson runs his office in Fresno. His brother Phillip has an office in Sacramento.) It's like those firefighter family dynasties in New York City. The profession is handed down from generation to generation. No one but the black sheep does anything else.
"I guess it's in my genes," says the 54-year-old Danz, who is an ocularist--a word you won't find in most dictionaries, one that he had "a heck of a time" getting into the San Francisco yellow pages.
His goal is the same as his ancestor's: to create an artificial eye that resembles as much as possible a real jelly-like eyeball. His method: hard work and the discipline of a true craftsman. Keep your head down and perfect the parts before you can look up to appreciate the breathtaking whole.
"It's almost a calling for me. It is for most of us," Danz says, at work in his 16th-floor office. There are only a handful of ocularists in the Bay Area. There are about 20 ocularists statewide, and more than 200 across the country.
