Art of William Barry Roberts

It has been nearly a year since this accident that allowed me to create this diptych. I was building a wood deck for the rear entries of my house last year and using all the standard power tools as one would expect. As a designer, I’ve been using power tools for fabricating models, prototypes etc. for years and I am well versed in proper safety including 40 hr OSHA training.

While making one of hundreds (or possibly thousands) of cuts with an electric circular saw, I happen to only have just my prescription eyeglasses on and was not using my safety goggles as a matter of laziness on my part. What felt like a minor piece of sawdust hitting my left eye was actually a small chunk about 1/8″  long that I saw fall to my forearm after the impact. It didn’t seem like much of anything until after a few blinks it was apparent something was in my eye, so I thought. With each subsequent blink the pain increased so much that the sunlight became unbearable. I ran into the house and began flushing my left eyeball with water to remove the piece which had become an extreme irritant causing my eye to involuntarily close up, thus I had to force the eyelids open with my fingers to get water in it. Nothing was working to alleviate the pain, I was at one point running my finger tips all around the eyeball hoping to feel the piece and scratch it out with my fingernails. It was at this point my wife insisted that I go to the emergency room at a hospital only a few blocks away (how many people have that luxury?).

I had to be driven there with my two children hurriedly strapped into their car seats while I had my head buried in my lap. The sunlight was excruciating as was any attempt to open my eyes. Once in the ER I was rushed into an examining room and had a thorough inspection of my eye with various optical illumination and detection devices. It was determined that there was no foreign object embedded within the eyeball, but rather a cut or abrasion on the cornea.

Once home and on plenty of pain relieving medication, I sat in my dark bedroom and got a compact mirror to see the damage myself. My left eye was essentially a sub-surface bloody mess. I had two small canvases prepared for another artwork that I hadn’t begun to draw upon yet. I held up the mirror and began to draw what I saw in the dim light. A blood-colored oxidized red gel pen was the  choice since that was the color that was so pronounced to me at the time. I drew both a three-quarters view and a side profile view.  I later used copper leafing and oxidized it away for the greenish shadows that were counter to the warm ochre highlights of my face in that room.

The injury healed amazingly quick, in a matter of two days. After which I resumed the deck project and decided that safety google were for sissies and tossed them aside….just kidding.