Fred

Fred was preparing for an exhibition of his art when lightening bolts suddenly flashed before him—not from outside his studio window, but from somewhere inside his vision. In the next two days Fred made two trips to the emergency room, the second after an alarming sight: a black half circle obscuring the vision in his left eye.

For anyone, the prospect of a detached retina is frightening. If it is not treated correctly--and promptly—a person can suffer permanent vision loss. Fred had an added concern. He is a glass artist who creates intricate sculptures and objects, working with molten glass pulled from a fiery furnace, or for smaller pieces, shaping glass over a torch that registers at 3500°F. An artist who works in this medium needs a steady hand and eyes like a hawk.

During the second visit to the emergency room on a Sunday evening, it was apparent that Fred had a detached retina. Dr. David Zacks, a vitreo-retinal specialist at the U-M Kellogg Eye Center, received an urgent call. He assessed the situation and scheduled surgery for the following morning.

Dr. Zacks explained that Fred’s retina had separated from the back wall of the eye. During surgery, Dr. Zacks inserted a scleral buckle, a flexible band that is wrapped around the eye to allow the detached retina to adhere to the wall of the eye. The Kellogg surgeon also injected a gas bubble in Fred’s eye, a technique that keeps the detached portion of the retina in position as it heals. As the retina re-attaches and heals, the gas bubble, which can temporarily distort vision, is gradually reabsorbed.

Artist that he is, Fred was intrigued by the images he had experienced before surgery and during the healing process, the lightening bolts and his view through the gas bubble. “I was fascinated by the entire process, even though I probably should have been scared out of my mind,” he said. “Essentially, I trusted Dr. Zacks to repair the problem.”

Fred had long been intrigued by images of the eye, images that are evident in many of his mixed media artwork and glass vessels. Back in his studio, Fred wanted to represent this new experience—the lightening bolts, the view through the bubble—for his next exhibition. “I had to record these images,” he says. “Some pieces were very near to what I ‘saw’ and others were more evocative of the experience.” Fred, whose work is in galleries and private collections in the United States as well as in Europe, first exhibited the new images at the Michigan Hot Glass Studio and Gallery in Detroit.

Fred’s vision is now completely restored, and Dr. Zacks is pleased with the outcome of the treatment. Fred continues to work with glass and fire, and will soon travel to Ogumce, Turkey, to teach at an international glass educational center called The Glass Furnace.