Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence is loved by millions and her face is certainly recognizable throughout most of the modern world, but Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! is now helping to forever immortalize Jennifer’s face for all time… with 9,658 Planters peanuts.
The project was born when Ripley’s contacted Orlando, Florida, artist Mateo Blanco and asked him to create a piece of artwork with only two restrictions. First, the subject had to be a celebrity associated with the state of Kentucky. Second, the materials used to create the artwork had to be something associated with baseball. The purpose for the commission was to have something original to showcase at an upcoming event that would be hosted at the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.
Blanco’s choice of Ms. Lawrence seemed to be a no brainer. Jennifer Lawrence is certainly a big name in Hollywood circles, and Jennifer was born and raised in Louisville. Peanuts seemed to go as hand-in-hand with baseball, as Ms. Lawrence does with feature film performances.
It’s safe to say that Mateo now knows Ms. Lawrence’s face better than anyone. Possibly better than Jennifer herself. Blanco started the project by drilling holes into a wooden back plate, outlining every contour and unique characteristic of Ms. Lawrence’s face — a process that took more than 400 hours — before gluing the Planter’s peanuts into place.
Creating Jennifer’s face was a painstaking process, but the hardest part of recreating the image of Ms. Lawrence was resisting Mateo’s natural inclination to munch on the peanuts.
“I love peanuts, so, as soon as I began, I ate like three or four peanuts for every one peanut I put in the portrait.”
By the time Blanco did finally complete the recreation of Jennifer Lawrence’s unique beauty, the portrait measured 78 inches by 55 inches.
“We of course had to get it framed to prevent people from chewing on Jennifer’s ears,” said Edward Meyer, Ripley’s VP of Exhibits and Archives. “I truly had no idea what he could create to fill our criteria of having to be made from something associated with baseball. The end result is one of the most original pieces in our vast collection of unbelievable art.”
Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! better check to see how Chris Martin feels about peanuts.
[Featured image: Jennifer Lawrence photo courtesy of Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment]
