Laurie Olefson turns eyeglasses into art

PROVIDENCE – To reach Olefson Art Opticals, you drive through the brick archway of an industrial building and into a parking lot. It feels a little bit like you shouldn’t be going that way unless you drive a delivery truck, but follow the signs and you’ll see the tiny house that holds artful eyeglass frames. The tiny house has glasses itself – the windows were designed to look like John Lennon’s famous frames.

Laurie Olefson, of Providence, is the owner of Olefson Art Opticals, along with her husband, Victor. She had an entire professional life before she started making eyewear by hand.

Olefson began her career as a graphic designer in the magazine world, doing work for Women’s Day, Woman’s World and The New York Times. Her first foray into crafting was inspired by her daughter, who was getting headaches.

“I was trying to teach her something to calm her down … so I thought I’d teach her how to crochet, because I knew how to crochet in the barest sense of the word. And I bought myself some pearls and some silver wire and I started fooling around with them,” Olefson said.

Soon, she started taking her work to craft shows – and has never looked back.

“If you do jewelry, it’s horrible,” Olefson said of the craft fairs. “Everybody in the world does jewelry. So I wanted to do something different and then I found this. It took me four or five years to be able to do this,” she said of crafting eyeglass frames.

Olefson said the American Crafts Council and a magazine ad were key in helping her find her niche in handmade glasses.

“There was a little ad in it the magazine for this famous craft school that was teaching glasses,” Olefson said. “Like pottery, jewelry, glasses, and I’m like, what do you mean ‘glasses’? So, I called them up and that was how I learned.”

She later went on to study with her teacher’s teacher at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, which no longer exists.

“I only went because she promised to help me with my grooves and my hinges,” Olefson said. The hinges on a pair of handmade glasses take four hours to create.

“Why you never see anybody else making glasses is [because] the machines are all industrial. The hinges and stuff, I do it all by hand,” Olefson explained. “The other hard part is doing the grooves for the lenses. I sat with my optician until I got it right. With the computers the opticians use for lenses it can’t be off by very much.”

In addition to her handmade glasses, which range in price from $400 to $1,200, she sells reading glasses with handmade details like gold and silver leaf, polymer clay additions and wood details. The readers range from $48 to $156, depending on the details.

“The ones that are $1,200 … are made out of horn. So horn is actually hair, so when you work with this, it stinks, you ever burn your hair? So, I made two pairs and I’m not making more,” Olefson said with a laugh.

Olefson Art Opticals moved into its current location, at 3 Acorn St., in  June. Olefson and her husband, who previously lived in New Jersey, chose Providence to be closer to their adult children, who are in Boston and Bristol, Rhode Island. They also liked the art community and the Jewish community.

Their grand opening on June 6 was attended by Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, and Temple Emanu-El’s rabbi and cantor.

“The crazy thing is that I’ve never been part of a Jewish population that’s growing,” remarked Olefson about Providence. “The synagogue, there’s a new bakery opening, a new deli opening.”

And now there’s a new optical store.

“I want to tap everything magnifying, everything optical,” she said, describing a collection of necklaces that she makes. The necklaces include magnifying pendants.

“These are real optical lenses and those are all shapes of real flowers,” she said.

Olefson’s most recent collection was inspired by climate change and features frames that evoke the natural and human-made world. They were created for the Smithsonian’s Craft Optimism, a show that asked artists and craftspeople to make works that respond to climate change.

When asked what she’s working on next, Olefson mentions a graffiti collection with the potential for personalization.

Like any artist, Olefson has collectors. In addition to her shop, she exhibits at art fairs.

“We have customers who have glasses by the dozen,” she said.

Olefson’s work can be seen on her website: www.olefsonartopticals.studio/ . Her shop, at 3 Acorn St., Providence is open Thursdays-Saturdays from 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. Contact her at 732-687-0193

SARAH GREENLEAF (sgreenleaf@jewishallianceri.org) is the digital marketing specialist for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and writes for Jewish Rhode Island.