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Every summer, people across the country venture to that most American of summer activities—the state fair. This annual event provides a platform for each state to showcase its particular agricultural and artistic talent. At many state fairs, butter sculpture takes center stage with its combination of both agronomy and art.
Since the early 1900s crowds have marveled at the novelty of butter sculpture. Today at the Iowa State Fair, the ‘Butter Cow’ remains the most-visited exhibit at the fair. Yes, it’s 600 pounds of butter sculpted into the very animal that produced it. Pamela Simpson, Professor of Art History at Washington and Lee University, attributes its popularity to several reasons—the circular nature of a cow being produced from its own material, the sheer difficulty of creating it, and the novelty of something that is usually spread on toast becoming a lifesize monument.
While Iowa chooses to commemorate bovines and celebrities, Minnesota showcases their dairy industry through butter likenesses of their twelve dairy princesses. Each day of the fair, a finalist in the Princess Kay of the Milky Way contest spends 5-6 hours in a refrigerated butter booth having her bust carved by sculptor Linda Christensen for every fairgoer to see. The live demonstration of butter sculpting has become such a popular part of the fair that last year the Midwest Diary Association inaugurated a larger butter booth to provide better sight lines for spectators. At the end of the two-week event, each candidate takes home her own likeness and is allowed to do with it what she will. For some, it’s kept in a freezer for future use, and for others, it’s used as a condiment for pancakes, sweet corn, toast…you get the idea.
In this most ephemeral of art forms, eating the art itself is perhaps the most appropriate reward for one’s work. And after the fair gates close, the artist is left to dream of the glories that will be created next summer—in butter.
Claire Happel is the arts & information intern; Sarah Metcalf is the business development intern.
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[...] Butter sculpting is a long-time tradition at many State Fairs. The first recorded North American sculpture was created by Carolyn Brooks for the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. In 1910, the first Buttercow was created by a sculptor only recorded as Mr. Daniels at the Iowa State Fair. Though the Midwest Dairy Association and its 5000 dairy farmers sponsor butter sculpting at State Fairs in 9 states (including North Dakota), sculpting in front of Fair-goers using a live model is unique to Minnesota (click for slideshow of past butter sculptures from Iowa and Minnesota). [...]