New York State Fair churns out another one: 800-pound butter sculpture unveiled for 2023

For Jim Victor and Marie Pelton, there's something appealing about butter.

And not just as a food product, but as an artistic medium.

"It’s a unique material," said Pelton, who, together with Victor, has sculpted the butter sculpture for the New York State Fair for several years. "You end up working in the butter booth for 10 days, which would never happen with traditional material," she said, adding how working with raw material like copper or clay can be a time-consuming process, unlike butter, which, "can be used very fast."

"It’s a fast medium. It has something — a quality to it — that’s very attractive, with a kind of a golden hue."

Is that part of the reason fairgoers find butter sculptures so appealing? For years, several state fairs across the country, including New York's, feature them. In Iowa, sculptors have been creating a Butter Cow for the state fair since 1911.

"Butter sculptures have been around for more than 50 years," Eva Balazs, director of marketing for Upstate Niagara Cooperative, said. "We’re happy we can put it to good use so it can be enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people each year."

The 55th annual New York State Fair butter sculpture, unveiled Tuesday, highlights the role of dairy products in fueling "brains, bones and bodies," according to the American Dairy Association North East, and depicts a train conducted by a cow and carrying kids consuming dairy items like milk and cheese.

The sculpture will be on display in the Dairy Products building at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse from Aug. 23 to Sept. 4 (Labor Day.)

It's butter...what's the big deal?

The answer to why people love butter sculptures may lie in their accessibility, in Victor's opinion.

"People can be intimidated by fine art," the sculptor said, adding that if the sculpture were made out of another material, like clay, public perception may view it as something that should be in a museum.

"It’s a tangible kind of thing," he said, adding that, "a sculpture is usually in a museum, on a pedestal somewhere. This is a sculpture for the people."

And Pelton also believes the draw for butter sculptures may be from the unusual medium.

"The color, butter color to me is very appealing, so they may be drawn to it unconsciously. It’s just a pleasant thing to look at," she said, adding that it's also, "the quality of the art, just seeing something big and yellow that you'd usually just see at the breakfast table."

According to officials, the butter from the sculpture will be placed in Noblehurst Farms' anaerobic generator in Linwood, N.Y., where it will be recycled into renewable energy. It can't be resold, said Balazs.

How the NY butter sculpture artists got into food creations

With 25 years of experience making sculptures out of butter and other edible materials, Pelton and Victor know their medium inside and out, even if Victor's start came about in a different way. According to Victor, his start came after he was approached asking if he could create chocolate sculptures of actors Mikey Rooney and Ann Miller.

"That was a publicity stunt, the chocolate busts of them. But that was my entry into food art," Victor said, adding that shortly after he was soon asked to make his first butter sculpture at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in 1995.

And throughout the years, Victor and Pelton have both realized how flexible food can be as an artistic canvas.

Spread the word: This is what becomes of the NYS Fair's massive butter sculpture

"You realize that food can be a medium. Any medium has things you need to know about it. We've used food and vegetables too. We did jobs for Subway, Chipotle, and we can use other food materials, can make a sculpture out of anything. You just need knowledge of the materials. That’s really the most important thing," Victor said.

And that, of course, can include butter.

A proud display of NY's dairy industry

There’s no way of knowing what the NYS Fair butter sculpture will represent before its unveiling — and that’s a huge part of the public allure, said Audrey Donahoe, president of the American Dairy Association North East.

“This butter sculpture is the best kept secret,” she said in an interview Monday. It’s also one of few places New Yorkers can observe 800 pounds of butter finessed into realistic shapes.

“I’m going to butter my toast in the morning, and then I’m going to go see a sculpture made out of 800 pounds of it,” she said. “It’s just so unique.”

But at its core, the sculpture represents the integral economic driver that is the dairy industry in New York, she said. 3,200 dairy farmers contribute to producing New York’s top agricultural commodity, with more than 15 billion pounds of milk produced annually.

"We work everyday to make sure all New Yorkers have access to fresh, nutritious products that we grow right here in New York state," said Sean Hennessey, director of the New York State Fair, at the sculpture's unveiling Tuesday.

Donahoe and her husband run Atrass Dairy Farm in Oneida County — the business name signifies the first initials of their six children’s names, in order of age. They’re big fairgoers, and Donahoe is particularly fond of Dairy Day, where she gets to educate the public about the dairy industry across the state — and judge a milkshake contest, which she insists upon doing each year. Dairy Day at the fair this year is Thursday, Aug. 31.

“(The butter sculpture) is a presentation of what I and all the New York dairy farmers do on our farms,” she said. “It’s a proud way to create suspense and curiosity.”

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: New York State Fair unveils 800-pound butter sculpture for 2023