Getting plastered for love

Ruth Addicott talks to him - and a few of the growing number of locals who use his services - to find out why they're willing to pay to get their boobs and bottoms and other bits forever enshrined in plaster

Next time you're thinking of taking a stroll along the seafront, past the shops and tiny studios that lie under the arches, spare a thought for what could be going on inside. In one case in particular, there could be someone bent over a table, half naked, with runny blue goo dripping off their privates.

While Brighton is the sort of place where people pay good money for this kind of recreation, at the JAG Gallery it is actually the work in progress of professional, awardwinning sculptor Jamie McCartney.

Boobs, bottoms, backs, hands, feet and even the nether regions are just some of the body parts Jamie has got his hands on. Working from his seafront studio, his unusual body sculptures have caught the eye of celebrities, film directors and an everincreasing number of locals keen to have a piece of themselves or their loved one in permanent plaster.

Katie Tanswell, owner of Walk In Wardrobe on Western Road, surprised her husband and got a cast of her cleavage done for Christmas.

To spare her dignity, she kept her bra on during the casting, not anticipating how much of an obstacle it would prove to be. "He had a real challenge on his hands," she says. "The bra was so lacy my boobs kept falling out and he had to work really hard to get all the intricate detail."

Jamie uses alginate, the same substance dentists use to take impressions of the teeth, to make the casts. It sets within two minutes, which means the process is very swift, if a little bit messy.

"He came out with this massive tub of Nivea cream and I had to have my fingers underneath the bra straps at the top of my shoulders to hold my cleavage in position," she recalls.

"You can imagine it, him on his knees in front of me, slapping Nivea into every crevice. I had a bin-liner around my waist and my thumbs were going blue with the weight. He then mixed up a layer of wet blue goo and shaped it all over.

"I couldn't stop laughing, which was making it even more difficult to set. He then applied a layer of plaster bandage. By this stage I looked three times my actual size and the gravity was almost pulling me over. Then, once it was rock solid, he said, Right, lean forward' and it all fell away. He was ever so charming."

Katie's husband didn't have a clue what was in store until he unwrapped her cleavage on Christmas Day.

"It was a complete shock," she says.

"His jaw just dropped and he said, Whose is this?' I said, Darling, whose do you think it is?' And he went Oh, my God! Not yours?'"

Katie paid £50 (plus tip) for the cast, which now hangs proudly in their home. "It was sexy and tasteful, which was the key," she says. "My husband loves it. He's got it as the screensaver on his phone."

The strangest exhibit Jamie has done so far was a wall sculpture for London museum Amora, consisting of 84 casts of breasts and genitals in various states of arousal. Not your everyday request, he admits. "Still, I rose to the challenge."

Lynn Burton from Haywards Heath was also taken with the idea of a body cast and she made her husband Mike get his bottom done for her birthday.

Mike, 43, a bank manager for Lloyds TSB, says: "We just happened to be walking past the studio one day and my wife noticed a cast of someone's bottom. She said, Oh, that's nice.

I quite fancy that for my birthday'.

"I thought she meant one of her so I said, Fine, I'll get you one of those. I'll wait in the car.' And she went, No - you're the one having it done, not me.' I suppose it makes sense looking back.

Why would she want a cast of her own bottom for her birthday?"

Five minutes later, Mike found himself lying flat on a table with his trousers around his knees, worrying whether he'd ever be able to sit down in comfort again. "I had my backside in the air and all Jamie said was, Don't worry, if you've got any pimples or spots or anything I'll grind them off so you get a smooth finish'. My wife thought it was highly amusing.

I wouldn't say it was painful, he didn't even pull any hairs out. If anything, it felt a bit ticklish."

Nevertheless, Mike was out through the door before Lynn could suggest he got the front done, too.

Having been mounted on a piece of wood so it wouldn't fall over, Mike's rear is now on display in their lounge next to the TV. Mike is more than satisfied with the result.

"I'd never studied my bottom in the mirror before so it was a bit of a case of Does my bum look big in this?'," he says. "But it's individual and you know it's yours."

Lynn, 35, was equally delighted. "I have always liked Mike's bum," she confesses. "He's just one of those men who looks really nice in a pair of trousers. It shows up on the cast really well. If anything, I'd have liked it a bit bigger because you don't get the full roundness."

The only body part Lynn would be prepared to have done is her feet but she highly recommends casting to anyone else. "It makes an unusual gift, it's stylish and it's something that's a part of somebody's body you love,"

she says.

Jamie uses his house to store excess stock and admits to having kept the bottom of an ex-girlfriend on the wall in his bedroom for a long time. "A real peach," he says. "I had to take it out in the end, it was a putting off the competition."

He's also got casts in his garden, with naked ladies poking out from the bushes and lying in flower beds. Along with the more predictable baby's hands and feet, he also does unusual castings of couples.

Sarah Hill, 45, got her back done with her Virgin pilot partner John's hand placed on her bottom. She had no qualms about taking her clothes off - just about keeping her balance.

"The plaster cast gets quite heavy and the most difficult thing was having to stand there and keep absolutely still while it set," she says.

"Ten minutes doesn't sound very long but when you're standing there completely naked with your weight on one leg, your partner holding your bottom and Jamie trying to sculpt it from the best angle, it's not easy. It was fun, though."

People have casts done for all sorts of reasons. A man turned up recently with his daughter, who was leaving to live with her mother in Spain. Both were going to miss each other and she wanted a cast of her hand holding her dad's to take with her.

Another woman who had suffered from breast cancer wanted her torso done and, while content to have the odd wrinkle smoothed out, she was very specific about leaving in the scar. "It was a life-affirming testament to her journey," says Jamie.

He began casting parts of his face and hands in wax and incorporating them in his sculptures when he was at the renowned Hartford Art School in America nearly 20 years ago.

He has since worked on a number of films, including Casino Royale, Charlotte Grey and Around The World In 80 Days, following the technique used for making prosthetics and corpses. The fact he can "airbrush"

the casts to bring out the best and remove the worst, is another reason they are proving so popular.

Asked what is the most challenging piece he has done to date and he is in no doubt. It was when he had to do four full-body casts, including an exhibit for a G-spot demonstration, for Amora, the new sex museum in London.

Visitors were encouraged to insert a finger into the exhibit to locate the G-spot, with the area lighting up with a sensor when they got it right.

"I had the model sitting with her legs apart and her arms back," explains Jamie. "That was a strange day.

Unchartered territory."

The results, however, were so spectacular, he has been contacted by a medical institute in the US, who now want to use the technique he developed as a research tool.

Brighton writer Emily Dubberley has also gone the extra mile and had the outside and inside of her "bits"

done for a feature. What's more, she did it twice. It took several cans of beer, cigarettes and the aid of a seven-inch leopard-skin dildo to get her through it.

"I can honestly admit it was worth suffering for my art'," she says.

"Exquisitely moulded and presented so it could be viewed in its entirety, I have to confess I found it rather beautiful."

The "pornament" as she refers to it, is now on display on her living room mantelpiece.

Inspired to experiment further, Jamie is currently working on an exhibition called Design A Vagina which involves 160 different casts (40 of which are on display in his studio). The finished piece will go on tour in the US and Europe from May and he is still looking for volunteers.

Amongst other unusual exhibits he has done is the cast of a woman's body using coffee beans, which sold for £3,500 at a charity auction.

While Jamie is certainly no prude when it comes to body parts, there was a request from one gentleman he did draw the line at - the man wanted a clear resin cast of the inside of his bottom. "Frankly, I have my limits,"

he says. "The human body is beautiful and fascinating and I've studied anatomy so I know how it works but I had to refuse that as it wouldn't be safe. When you work with the body that's of primary importance."

He inherited a lot of his creativity from his mother, who was also an artist. Even his 85-year-old dad has got in on the act and had his head cast and turned into a bronze bust. "Bloody good sport for his age," remarks Jamie.

The only time his job has proved an occupational hazard is in relationships.

Not surprisingly, Jamie is single at the moment and, while most of his partners have been fully supportive of his craft, he concedes: "You have to work on the principle it's OK to get your appetite outdoors but you only eat at home."

Only once has he ever gone under the goo himself, when he was forced to cast his own body to make a corpse when a model pulled out on the set of the film Troy. He now keeps the cast in his car and drives around with himself as the passenger.

"I gave myself big pecs, a six-pack and a massive dong," he says.

Jamie McCartney, JAG Gallery, Arch 283a Madeira Drive, Brighton. Call 07961 338045 or visit www.jamiemccartney.com

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