Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christina King. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Christina , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
As an ocularist, our job is to perfect the look and match of an existing eye. Our job if done right, is to make the normal viewer not notice the visual difference and this blend is viewed positively through the public’s perceptions. I however, in hopes to help one heal from the trauma of eye loss, started creating prosthetic eyes that feed into one’s own artistic ideas and help that finally be able to address the eye loss and own it. It allows the wearer to choose when the public can view the difference and gives the user bodily autonomy back. Much like a personal tattoo, but it can be removed and swapped out. This started as a simple request but very quickly I realized just how much this simple request made the wearer feel more complete. Most clients who have requested one break down with happy tears when they finally see a dream they once had come true. The idea of a fun eye isn’t the industry standard, as our paints are very hard to work with and take even more dedication to create than the standard prosthesis. It took a lot of courage on my own end to not only develop these fun eyes but to post them publicly for all to see, judge and comment, as well as fellow ocularist.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Currently known for her “fun eyes”, Christina King is an Ocularist that resides in Portland, Oregon. She began her career in 2009, directly after graduating from the Art Institute in Philadelphia with a bachelor of science in Industrial Design and Technology. While in Philadelphia, she worked closely with Will’s Eye Hospital, with Dr. Carol and Jerry Shield as well Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, with Dr. James and William Katowitz. While working with Children’s Hospital, Christina specialized in working closely with children with microphthalmia. She was the first to create 3D-printed ergonomic impression trays with her partner , Zachary Leitzel, that helped many other ocularists with their own fittings. Currently, she is very passionate about working with Rachel MacKenzlee to raise money and create as many free fun eyes as possible or affordable as possible. This fundraiser was created after seeing just how many other one-eye wearers were interested in fun eyes after seeing Rachel’s page, who either couldn’t afford a fun eye or who didn’t have an ocularist willing to create one in their area. This specialty isn’t part of normal ocularists and goes above and beyond what is asked of an ocularist. In addition to Ocularistry, Christina actively partakes in continuing education therapy courses to expand her knowledge and obtain proper handling of clients with PTSD, trauma-based, emotional, and support. It’s one added interest that she uses in her career to make her clients feel more at ease.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
In 2020 I was welcoming my second and last child in early July. I’m the only person that creates the prosthetics in my office as well as the owner and I support two other employees. As a small business owner the closure from March 13, 2020- May was nearly enough to end our business, but not for the reason you would think. We were extremely busy, we spaced out appointments I wore an N95, and distanced clientele. The other side of things, meaning the billers for insurance all switched to working from home. Which meant even though we did the work, received appropriate authorizations and submitted claims in a timely manner, they didn’t pay us for creating the prosthetics but only the check ups, build ups and adjustments. And I was thankful that one of our employees applied for a 10k grant which supported small business ethnic women. My mom is from Vietnam and my dad is from Lebanon. This helped us make payments to survive and sustain ourselves. I was also paying for the business that I purchased in early 2019 at the cost of 5k a month. No one expected the pandemic on top of normal business expenses.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
When I created my Instagram, November 2017 and my Tic Tok on Feb 23, 2022, I posted originally to log what I created and because I was genuinely was proud of what I was creating. I made them in hopes that maybe someone else who had a prosthesis or needed a prosthesis would see it and get to know me through social media and become more aware of eye loss. On November 30, 2022 I had posted a video about a little girl and told her story of how she lost her eye, I also showed my process of how I made her new fun eye. I think knowing your fan base and what makes you stand out and unique is what makes each person interesting on social media. The morning of the 30th I remember waking up and checking my tik tok to see how many views I had, and was baffled by how many views it had over night. At 8am it was 400k, in half an hour over 600k and kept growing. By night, it was in the millions. I think at that pivotal point I knew this was something people enjoyed seeing. Each video is not only the back story of each individual, their struggle, loss, challenges, but it was also something they picked out with each fun eye, it showed their response, their happiness and them finding closure. It’s amazing to watch someone feel whole and hear their entire story on less than 60 seconds. As a viewer and creator, that’s something I feel really good about, because it show there are still professional individuals out there trying hard to help others feel good about themselves and make a difference without the price tag associated with eye prosthetics normally. And I think that’s a question other business individuals wanting to create content on social media can possibly think about in their own social media endeavors. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.centerforocularprosthetics.com
- Instagram: Centerforocularprosthetics
- Facebook: Center for ocular prosthetics
- Tik tok: christina_oculara