Cleveland artist wants you to take a selfie with Trump and Clinton — the lint sculptures
How much would you pay for a picture with Donald Trump? What about Hillary Clinton?
One artist in Cleveland wants to bring you the next best thing: selfies with Trump and Clinton-inspired lint sculptures.
Artist Sandy Buffie, who auctions off her artwork for charity, introduced her life-size sculpture of Trump's head, made with 30 gallons of dryer lint, in July at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. She recently completed one for Clinton (that one took roughly 26 gallons of lint).
"I was really pleased that the response from 99% of people was appreciating it in an artistic perspective and not in a political perspective," said Buffie, 57. "I wasn't making a political statement. I was making it as a fundraising piece."
Buffie created the lint sculptures to fundraise for the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, a nonprofit that offers programs in painting, digital media and theater for children across the city. She's a board member at the center and plans to host a series of events starring Clinton and Donald a la lint, from dinner parties to selfie-a-thons, before auctioning off the sculptures.
The highest bidder for the Trump sculpture was $1,100, Buffie said.
Buffie has made more than 30 lint sculptures over the last 25 years, from one of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean to commissioned sculptures of pets. She said she event made a replica of Shaquille O'Neal's dog, using the pet's hair.
"You created something that you're actually connecting with," she said. "It's a very personal thing."
It usually takes Buffie three months to build a lint sculpture. After the Trump head took off, Buffie tried to build the Clinton replica in time for the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. That didn't work out, but she still completed the Clinton sculpture in "record time" of under five weeks.
To get the job done, Buffie used photos from the candidates' press releases for scale, blowing up the images to measure the eyes.
"Once you determine how long the eye is going to be, it’s all proportions," she said.
In the process, Buffie learned Clinton's features are "perfectly proportional," though her eyelashes are long. Trump's sculpture was more challenging, she said, because one eye is slightly larger than the other and his nose is long.
From there, she built the framework and glued the lint with glue, layer after layer. Then Buffie stuck it under a large hair-salon-style dryer and built a foil tent around it.
Other than the subject matter, Buffie said, there's nothing political about her project. She said she hopes spectators can put politics aside.
"I created these people because it is a political year, and I knew that my chances of raising money for the charity were greater if it were someone who is popular right now," she said," but the focus is on keeping art available for kids."