Cynthia Albritton, most famously known as Cynthia Plaster Caster, has died. She was 74. Cynthia Plaster Caster, who called herself a “recovering groupie,” took casts of the erect penises and boobs of musicians she admired. Her collection included casts of Jimi Hendrix, Peter Tork of the Monkees, Karen O, the Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley, and Wayne Kramer of MC5. Born in 1947, Albritton got started on her unique vocation while studying in art school. “One day the teacher said, ‘You can plaster cast almost anything that’s solid,’” she said on Vh1’s Let’s Spend the Night Together. “‘In fact, bring in any old object from home tomorrow. We’ll make a cast of it.’ And I thought …” Working with her friend Diana Plaster Caster, Cynthia’s first big get was Jimi Hendrix.
Her portfolio, um, enlarged enough by the 1970s to garner the attention of Frank Zappa. Although he never made a personal contribution to the collection, he moved Albritton out to Los Angeles in order to be closer to the stars. Albritton wound up having to go to court to regain possession of her phalli from Zappa’s legal partner, Herb Cohen, in 1993. She made her first exhibition of her casts — 50 in total, along with breasts from Karen O, Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, and Sally Timms of the Mekons — in 2000. Albritton’s work in the rock scene was immortalized in the Kiss song “Plaster Caster.”
