Cynthia Plastercaster

Cynthia Plaster Caster (born Cynthia Albritton on May 24, 1947) is an American artist and self-described "recovering groupie" who creates plaster casts of famous persons' breasts and 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. By 2000 she had begun casting female artists' breasts.

Albritton was born in Chicago, Illinois.

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", her idea to use the assignment as a lure to entice rock stars to have sex with her became a hit, even before she made a cast of anyone's genitalia. Finding a dental mold-making substance called alginate to be sufficient, she found her first client in Jimi Hendrix, the first of many to submit to the idea.

Meeting Frank Zappa, who found the concept of "casting" both humorous and creative as an art form, though he himself never submitted 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 assistants. Together, Zappa and Albritton conceived an idea of preserving the casts of musicians for a future exhibition, entrusting them to his partner, Herb Cohen, for safekeeping. This idea never took off, due to a lack of famous rock stars as participants. A movie was made of Albritton and her celebrity grew. However, she found herself having to file a lawsuit to retrieve the casts. In 2000, she decided to cast women's breasts as well.

A film documentary, Plaster Caster (2001), has been 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 erect penis. 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".

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