Butter Cow at the Iowa State Fair in 2011 – exactly 100 years from when the first one was made. Photo credit: Pinimg.com
It’s fair season and all across the country there are butter sculptures for our viewing pleasure. It’s a “thing.” They’re kind of a fun thing, and kind of a weird thing, so I wanted to do a little research on the subject …
Overview
State fairs are probably the biggest patrons of the art. The Ohio State Fair, for example, goes all out. This year, they used 2200 pounds of butter for their “A Christmas Story” display. In fact, they added lights to a Christmas tree made of butter. It took 400 hours to create.
In our area, at the Eastern States Exposition (The Big E) there is always a huge butter sculpture on display behind glass in a refrigerated display case.
2015 at the Big E. It was done with over 600 pounds of butter donated by Agrimark/Cabot Creamery. Sculptors – Jim Victor and Marie Pelton who have custom-made mobile refrigerated booths that allow them to build their sculptures anywhere.
There are sculptures of everything you can think of, but I’m partial to the cows. That makes some kind of sense to me…
This was also done by Marie Pelton and Jim Victor for The Big E.
But, I’ve always wondered – why butter? If I was a sculptor, would I choose butter for my medium? I suppose there are pros and cons:
Pros
- It’s way easier to carve than say, marble.
- There might be “good money” in it.
- There’s a big audience at the fairs, so, it would probably be good advertising for your studio.
Cons
- It has a limited shelf life. (They say the sculptures will last 5-10 years if frozen, but they would smell bad by then. They are usually just broken down and thrown away after the event.) This is a very big “con.”
- You would have to work in a cold (32-45F) environment. Brrrr.
- There is more to the sculpture than just the outer layer of butter, so you would have to be a carpenter and welder as well as a sculptor.
How did all this get started?
Butter has been sculpted all over the world since at least the 1500’s. In China and Tibet it was, and still is, done with yak butter and mineral dyes.
Photo from a short video – A peek of China’s best butter sculpture
Here in the US, according to Wikipedia, Caroline Brooks made the first butter sculpture in 1867, while living on a farm in Arkansas. At the time, farm women were churning butter and then stamping it or molding it. Caroline started sculpturing butter for local families and they were more than willing to pay. She soon began doing it for fairs (expositions) where people paid admission to see her work.
“Dreaming Iolanthe,” a butter sculpture made by Caroline Brooks for the Centennial Exhibition in 1876.
Caroline Brooks showing her skills at Amory Hall in Boston in 1877.
She then traveled around the country, giving lectures and demonstrating her art.
Posing in front of her bas relief butter sculpture of Columbus for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Unfortunately, when she died, there was no “body of work” for us to visit in museums. (Although she did eventually switch from butter to marble, and that work is still viewable.) I would have loved to have seen this one:
Caroline Brooks’s lifesize butter sculpture of “Dreaming Iolanthe.”
By the late 1800’s, butter was being produced commercially and butter sculptures became easier to make. Many women artists created them, and it was considered to be “women’s work.” The period from 1890 until the Great Depression was called the “golden age of butter sculptures.”
But, during the Depression, people started eating margarine and things died down in the butter biz. The butter companies needed a marketing strategy. They hit on butter sculptures and they have been using them since then to market their product. It seems to have worked and that is why we have butter sculptures at our state fairs.
Miscellaneous Information
Making Your Own
Buying Your Own
Look for these at holiday time. You never know who is going to be carrying them (sometimes Walmart does). The Kellers Creamery also makes a turkey and a rabbit,
Good Articles Online
2018 – The Takeout – The Surprisingly Lofty History of American Butter Sculpting
2018 – Dairy Herd Management – Butter Sculptures Take Over Social Media During Fair Season
2015 – NPR – A Toast To Butter Sculpture, The Art That Melts The Hearts Of The Masses
Wikipedia – Butter Sculpture
Good Books
2016 – Butter, A Rich History
2012 – Corn Palaces and Butter Queens – A History of Crop Art and Dairy Sculpture
Good Videos
2018 – Time-lapse Construction of the 2018 Pa. Farm Show Butter Sculpture
2017 – Butter Sculptor Shapes Iowa Tradition
2013 – Butter Carving at CAI (Culinary Academy of India)
