Cynthia Plaster Caster

Cynthia Plaster Caster (born Cynthia Albritton on May 24, 1947) is an American artist and self-described "recovering groupie" who gained fame for creating plaster casts of famous persons' erect penises.

Albritton began her career in 1968 by casting penises of rock musicians. She later expanded her subjects to include filmmakers and other types of artists, eventually amassing a collection of 50 plaster phalluses.[1] In 2000 she added casting female artists' breasts.

Biography

Albritton was born in Chicago, Illinois.[2] Shy as a young girl, Albritton sought out a way to make contact with the opposite sex. In the late 1960s she became caught up in free love and rock music. In college, when her art teacher gave the class an assignment to "plaster cast something solid that could retain its shape", she hit upon the idea of casting the temporarily-solid male genitalia, which would then soften and exit the mold. Finding a dental mold-making substance called alginate to be sufficient, she found her first celebrity client in Jimi Hendrix, the first of many to submit to the idea.[3]

Meeting Frank Zappa, who found the concept of "casting" both humorous and creative as an art form (though he himself had no interest in submitting to the procedure), Albritton found in him something of a patron. He moved her to Los Angeles, which she described as a veritable groupie heaven, with no lack of willing assistants eager to prepare the subjects for casting. In 1971, after her apartment was burglarized, Zappa and Albritton decided the casts should be preserved for a future exhibition, entrusting them to Zappa's legal partner, Herb Cohen, for safekeeping. The exhibition idea didn't take off however due to a sudden lack of famous rock stars willing to participate. She made no casts between 1971 and 1980. After years of wrangling, Albritton found herself in 1993 having to go to court in order to retrieve the 25 casts Cohen held (she got all but 3 of them back).[4][5] In 2000, Albritton finally held her first exhibition of the casts in New York City. She also decided to begin casting women's breasts as an egalitarian move.[6]

In 2001 a film documentary, Plaster Caster, was made about her. She also contributed to the BBC Three documentary My Penis and I (2005), made by British filmmaker Lawrence Barraclough about his anxiety over his 9 cm (3½-inch) erect penis.[7] She has inspired at least two songs: "Five Short Minutes" by Jim Croce and "Plaster Caster" by Kiss. She is also mentioned in Momus' song "The Penis Song" on his album Folktronic and the Le Tigre song "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo".[8] In 1969 Pamela Des Barres, of Frank Zappa's group The GTOs, recorded a telephone conversation with Cynthia from Chicago for the GTOs album Permanent Damage.

In 2010, Albritton ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Chicago, Illinois on the "Hard Party" ticket.[2][9]

She is the inspiration for the character 'Juicy Lucy' in Good Girls Revolt, whom Patty interviews as a witness to the Altamont riot.

List of casts[10]

Males

Females

References
  1. https://allthatsinteresting.com/cynthia-plaster-caster
  2. Elejalde-Ruiz, Alexia (October 31, 2010). "Cynthia Plaster Caster Runs for Chicago Mayor", Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 18, 2011.
  3. Cynthia Plaster Caster: Art with Staying Power Archived November 22, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, a Salon interview
  4. Philips, Chuck (April 13, 1993). "Plaster Caster Lawsuit Set for Court Wednesday". L.A. Times. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
  5. Wallechinsky, David (2006). The book of lists: the original compendium of curious information. et al. (Canadian ed.). Toronto: Seal Books. pp. 355–356. ISBN 9780307366177.
  6. Albritton, Cynthia official website The Long and the Short of It Retrieved September 20, 2008 Requires Flash
  7. "Has your penis been short-changed?". Metro. October 3, 2007. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
  8. This Island (Media notes). Le Tigre. Universal Records. 2004.CS1 maint: others (link)
  9. Costello, Brian (November 4, 2010). "Q&A with Mayoral Candidate Cynthia Plaster Caster", Chicago Reader. Retrieved November 18, 2011.
  10. http://www.cynthiaplastercaster.com/flash/home.html
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.