As a maker of prosthetic eyes, Christina Leitzel was told as an apprentice to treat her craft much as an expert art forger would: create a perfect match of one of nature’s most intricate canvases.
But just as there are many ways to lose an eye — to cancer or to a fall; to a broom that strikes the wrong part of the brow — Leitzel wants to show there are many ways to gain one.
On a damp afternoon in Portland, Ore., a man in his 30s who had recently lost his eye to a BB gun stepped out of her office with a grin. His eyes matched his forest green beanie. But in his left, a shimmering gold vortex swirled within the pupil.
Leitzel, also known as “Christina Oculara” on TikTok and Instagram, creates what she calls “fun eyes.” Her designs include pupils painted in the shape of a sunflower and the diamond slit of a beloved cat. She has fulfilled requests as strange as they are touching: A man who arrived with a box of ashes, wishing for his late wife to “see everything that he did.” A woman adorned in piercings who thought, Why not a pierced iris, too?
That one, Leitzel said, turned out to be her favorite. The resulting TikTok was so popular that eye doctors felt compelled to post warnings against piercing actual eyeballs.