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Lint Artists Turn Workaday Laundry Cycles into Masterpieces

A portrait of Fauve painter Edouard Vuillard emerges after several dryer loads. Lean your head to the left for correct orientation.

June 28th, 2009

It's difficult, requires keen foresight and meticulous planning, and fraught with the frustrations of work that still can emerge spoiled after hours of 'cycling'.

Welcome to the (literally) rough and tumble-dry world of the lint artist and the new art medium that has emerged from the mundane world of the Monday morning laundry.

Said to have begun with artist/housewife Biffette Bouffont, the demanding technique for creating the soft, transitory "lintworks" is spreading across the salons and laundromats of the midwest.

"It started one day when I had forgotten to clean off the lint trap between dryer loads" , sez Biffette. "I noticed in the collected lint what appeared to be an image bearing a very strong likeness to the Minoan dolphin fresco from Akrotiri. By carefully rearranging the placement of clothes in the next load I was able to reinforce the image."

"What emerged was so delicate and ephemeral, swaying slightly with the ambient breeze. Then I cleaned off the lint trap and put in another load."

The familiar sight of the two trains from the seminal work "In Two the Silenced Knights" appears in this lint art replica honoring the famous piece from the Exemplare' Redondo(TM) art movement which arose in the late 1970's.

Rodin's famous "Burghers of Calais" emerges after several loads of laundry in an intense day of precise placement of lights and darks by lint artist Biffette Bouffont. Note the incredible detail of the ropes draped across the back of the central figure.

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