Glasses, both prescription eyewear and sunglasses, now offer him financial security and form the basis for his business, Proper Eyewear (properwood.com). But what the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design grad and former Wiskullsin designer is creating by hand aren’t your average frames. Sourced from Milwaukee Woodworks, all of the 35 styles are made with fallen lumber from the area – often from trees that were being removed anyway.
The beautiful markings and grain patterns of maple, walnut and cherry underscore the careful selection process that goes into crafting each pair. Careful, indeed. It takes Rickun two weeks to make each pair before he adds prescription lenses from Waterford’s Fluegge Optical.
“Wood is the most comfortable and lightweight material I’ve worn out of the dozens of frames I’ve owned,” he says. “On top of that, in Wisconsin, we have access to some of the best lumber in the world.”
After a successful Indiegogo campaign in 2013, Rickun purchased the equipment he needed to get the business off the ground. But because he’s a one-man shop, Rickun says it won’t be until this fall that he will begin to sell them in stores.
“In the meantime,” he says, “I’m more than happy to keep making them the way I do now.”
