{"id":6184,"date":"2025-03-06T12:08:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T11:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/bibliotheek\/bram-has-an-eye-for-art\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T15:07:11","slug":"bram-has-an-eye-for-art","status":"publish","type":"library_pt","link":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/library\/personal-stories\/bram-has-an-eye-for-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Bram has an eye for art"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-post-date\"><time datetime=\"2025-03-06T12:08:56+01:00\">06 March 2025<\/time><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During a night out in Arnhem, Bram gets into an argument with a friend on a patio. A stranger starts to interfere. At one point, the man walks away, but suddenly he turns around and hits Bram in the face with a large glass. The glass shatters, and Bram is seriously injured.   <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bram recalls: \u201cI walked toward the Korenmarkt. I had my hand over my eye, so I couldn\u2019t see much anyway. Everything was covered in blood. But you don\u2019t realize how serious the situation is because you\u2019re pumped full of adrenaline. I was in shock. It didn\u2019t even occur to me to call the police. I did talk to some people, though. They were absolutely terrified. I went limp and lay down on the ground. A bouncer called the ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The paramedics immediately realized something was seriously wrong. They took him to Radboudumc in Nijmegen. \u201cFirst, they stitched up everything around my eye. I had three large wounds on my face. Because I had been drinking, they couldn\u2019t operate on my eye that same evening.\u201d The beer glass had pierced his upper eyelid and cut open the eyeball. There was a tear in Bram\u2019s eyeball. The next day, the doctors removed the glass from his eye and sutured it shut. The eye needed rest. Two weeks later, he would undergo another operation to remove the excess blood. The doctors were hopeful that his vision would return after that second surgery. \u201cBut keep in mind that this might not happen,\u201d the doctors warned.         <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After three days, Bram was allowed to go home, and he immediately filed a police report regarding the assault. There were few police officers on the streets the night of the fight, so it would be difficult to find the perpetrator. Once home, his eye didn\u2019t feel right. \u201cWhen I moved my good eye, I felt intense shooting pains in the eye that had been operated on. It felt as if there was still glass in it. But the hospital assured me that this was just the pain from the stitches. Two weeks later, during surgery, it turned out I was right. There was still glass in the eye, and it had sliced through my entire retina.\u201d   <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Mess of Trouble<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Bram came out of anesthesia, there were only people with worried expressions standing around his bed. The doctors told him that part of his eye had been removed. Bram was still groggy from the anesthesia and didn\u2019t immediately realize the seriousness of what the doctor was telling him. This possibility hadn\u2019t been discussed with him beforehand. Bram: \u201cI asked if I could see my removed eye. I would have liked to put it in a jar. Maybe a morbid idea. But it is, after all, a part of yourself. The doctors said it was \u2018a mess\u2019 in my eye socket and that\u2019s why they had to pick the eye out in tiny pieces.\u201d    <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Bram the Pirate<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After the surgery, Bram hit rock bottom. \u201cI wanted to train to become a sports instructor, but I soon realized that the sports I wanted to teach\u2014like snowboarding and mountain biking\u2014were no longer an option. I had to wait and see what I could still do with just one eye. On top of that, I had to move out of my house. I ended up on the street. My relationship with my parents wasn\u2019t good. I just kept getting into more trouble. I became depressed, started smoking too much weed, and experimenting with other drugs. Through the crisis shelter, I went to a facility where they were supposed to help me. But it didn\u2019t work. I felt very unsafe there because the other patients had serious problems and there were constant incidents. I kept sliding further and further down. One day, I left with nothing but a bag of clothes. I was able to stay with friends. They took care of me for half a year. I\u2019m so incredibly grateful to these people. Without them, I don\u2019t know how things would have turned out for me. Back then, I was a ticking, self-destructive time bomb. I had so much anger inside me about the whole situation with that eye.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In these turbulent times, his friends often call him a pirate or a captain, referring to his prosthetic limb and eye patch. That\u2019s why he had a hook tattooed on his hand. \u201cI didn\u2019t have that perfect body anymore anyway. I also branded myself with a P and got a wood motif tattooed on my leg. Now I was a \u2018real\u2019 pirate. Looking back, I\u2019ve never regretted it.\u201d  <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Dentures as Jewelry<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Things took a turn for the better when, at the age of 25, he found a place of his own and was able to begin recovering physically and coming to terms with the loss of his eye. Bram started exercising and tried to live a healthier lifestyle. In addition to tattooing, he also developed an interest in making jewelry. \u201cI wanted something special as an ocular prosthesis, because I really don\u2019t like standard artificial eyes at all. The idea of trying to restore something that will never be 100% the same again bothers me. That\u2019s why I started seeing my ocular prosthesis as a piece of jewelry.\u201d   <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bram designed his first eye in Windows Paint and had a friend refine the design in Photoshop. He then took it to Bob, who was an ocularist in Nijmegen at the time, to have it made into a prosthetic eye. \u201cFrom a distance, my first design looked like a normal brown eye, but when you got closer, you could see a golden compass on a brown background, with a skull inside it as well. My second design was a prosthesis featuring a silver chain with a Huguenot cross incorporated into it. It\u2019s now a necklace again, because I gave the artificial eye\u2014as a necklace\u2014to my girlfriend. These days, I mainly make ocular prostheses with opals. I did try making the entire ocular prosthesis myself, but the epoxy I used wasn\u2019t really good for my eye socket. Now I go to ocularist Jelmer Remmers. He incorporates the inserts I design (iris and pupil) into an ocular prosthesis. Sometimes people stare at me. The reactions vary widely, but they\u2019re generally positive. Children, in particular, think my eye jewelry is really cool. Because of the way the light hits the gemstone, it sometimes looks as if there\u2019s a little light inside it.\u201d  <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Acceptance<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The person responsible for the accident was never caught. Therefore, compensation for the damages cannot be recovered from that person. Bram did, however, receive a small victim compensation payment of \u20ac3,600 from the Violent Crimes Fund. \u201cI\u2019ve come to terms with the loss of my eye. By making eye jewelry, I\u2019ve been able to fully accept the eye removal. I\u2019m even a little proud of it. I actually think my two different eyes are very beautiful this way. I don\u2019t feel ashamed as easily anymore. I don\u2019t necessarily need to belong to a group. You learn from your mistakes.\u201d   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bram\u2019s eye was seriously injured in a fight. He was 21 at the time. The loss of his eye had a major negative impact on his life. Bram is doing well again now. He lives with his beloved Maria and their little son Aurelius, who is almost 1 year old. What makes his story even more special is that Bram designs his own artificial eyes. This is his story.      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":6185,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_daextauttol_enable_tooltips":""},"library_cat":[113],"class_list":["post-6184","library_pt","type-library_pt","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","library_cat-personal-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_pt\/6184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_pt"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/library_pt"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"library_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_cat?post=6184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}