Or more precisely, there are now eight (four originals, four copies).
The newest, created this year in Brooklyn and headed for the Maritime Museum in Washington, D.C. continues my burgeoning military career. I started out as a West Point cadet, just before the first world war. It took me around sixty years to find myself promoted to lieutenant, aboard a destroyer. I blame the slowness of my rise on the unconventional choice of switching branches of the service. At this rate, i'll make general (er, admiral) just in time to annoy a certain Picard with my know-it-all ways and comic relief flatulence.
This newest one, made at Atta Studios (http://www.attainc.com/frames/portfolio_frame.html ...how many seconds does it take you to find me??), was created with a combination of techniques. The molds for the body and arms were done with good, old-fashioned plaster (as the statue is clothed [yawn], precision there wasn't crucial). The head and hands were done in goopy, rubbery, hardening alginate.
If you've never had your body reproduced, here's the drill. You shave any body hair that won't tuck under a swim cap (you'll pay for any lack of meticulousness). You slather yourself head to toe in vaseline. Or maybe you'll skip the cap, and vaseline your hair, too. If it feels like you have enough on you, you don't.
Your artists get dipping and slapping plaster. It's nice and warm at first (if your artists have done their part with thoughtfulness and care). It hardens within ten minutes, and that's when the fun begins. As they pull on whatever part of the plaster they can grab, you expand and contract your muscles and skin, pulling away from the plaster molecule by molecule. There are sections of the body where this is fairly pain-free.
Then there are the other sections.
Anywhere you missed hair, anywhere you didn't have about a centimeter of vaseline, it might hurt. The sweaty, light-headed kind of hurt that feels like the initial stages of a drug trip. This is the part where the once-warm plaster is cold and unyielding...unless you have extra layers of fat on you, you'll be all too aware you're the only naked one in the room. You'll ask for your robe to be draped on the naked parts as they emerge, and hope that the studio's space heater is working, so it can be pointed right at you from the closest distance that won't actually peel your epidermis. As understanding as the artists will be, there will be moments when their speed will be one gear above yours (when you're trying to extract your lost body, hoping it comes back like it was before, one gear is the difference between oxcart and Studebaker). At any point during this process, they may or may not actually put their feet on your thighs or chest, to get more leverage.
Nope, not making that up.
Finally you're free.
The artists inspect the insides of the molds, mostly to see where you didn't shave so well.
On to the head and hands. Alginate technology has come a long way. When i did an all-body alginate job five years ago, you had to stay inside the mold for almost an hour and a half, during which time 78% of the subjects pass out. These days, it's about five minutes. They leave your nostrils uncovered, hope you're not claustrophobic, then shhhloop, shloop, pop, you're out.
The artists are done with you. Off to the showers. Parts of your skin feel like the steel-wool dance troupe has been practicing pirouettes on you. You're cold and squishy, but faintly giddy breathing the sweet air of freedom. You place yourself under a shower that may or may not have hot water. If it is hot, you're so grateful for any warmth at all, you'll want to stay under there forever.
Which is good, because forever is approximately how long it takes to wash off vaseline. You eventually give up, and towel off. You'll shower again when you get home (but it'll be another day or two before you recognize your skin).
A couple months later, there's a new you in the world! And to think, women just put a penis in their vagina to get the same magical effect...them ladies, always taking the easy way. No pain tolerance.
So if you're in the old District of C., stop on in and see me. Kissing, mooning, and saluting are all encouraged. No leg humping, though.
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