It was way back in the 8o's when I developed a love for edgy lapel wear. Studying classic literature at school, I began building a world I could bear to look at and wear.

My lapel was my art gallery.

I had no shame. I'd wear anything. Rubber dog poop. Happy meal toys. Anything. I wore an orange plastic whisk broom to dinner. Anything.

This began a long love affair with reproduction graphics ... which eventually whisked me into art school and a career in graphics.

My first real job was working graphics at a toy company. This allowed me to move major processes from vocation to avocation. My hobby is art at home.

Back to the lapel thing.

I learned to make rubber molds and to cast buttons in hot glue. Paint the hot glue, mass produce these and you got yourself an arts organization.

This went down in flames when I learned the paint won't stick to hot glue. Not a durable product. The backs were also most unpresentable.

At this point I am hell bent on mass producing lapel wear. But HOW?

For five years I looked at the catalogue. Glass eyes used for taxidermy. We used them for exhibits and displays at work.

Hand-painted glass eyeballs. WOW!
Eighty bucks a pop. OUCH!

I'm a little slow, so it took that long for the idea to pop into my head "Ya know, I bet You could find just about the same thing on Amazon."

You can.

So then ... I made my first eyeball brooch (photo left).

Really, I cannot overstate the groove which opened up before me.

I was made to make this art.

Built by hand and fun to wear,
mass production was still impossible.

3D printing had always been an option. All I would need is a steady supply of perfect plastic eyeballs.
I found them.

Next, I would learn to render art in the 3rd dimension. I would need to teach myself printing, test production methods, smooth out wrinkles and turn towards the study of web sales.
I did that.

I survived puberty by hiding out and building airplane models.

I survived alcoholism by isolating and building art.

When Covid hit ... I knew just what to do and this is it.

Welcome to Ocupuncture :-)