CNE sculpture scandal: I can’t believe it’s not (all) butter
It’s a slippery scandal that has left Toronto butter lovers churning with udder incredulity: those famous sculptures at the CNE aren’t always carved out of solid butter.
Viral threads on Reddit and Twitter making the rounds late Monday and Tuesday featuring a photo of an artist using a foam frame for her sculpture of a velociraptor revealed that many people just can’t believe it’s not all butter.
“My life has no meaning. I don’t know who I am (anymore),” wrote a Reddit user going by the name “IGnuGnat.”
Another, going by “TheShaleco,” wrote: “STOP! I want to live in ignorance.”
“DANG! Next I will (find) out chocolate milk is not a miracle elixir!” wrote Twitter user @MarvinBagby.
At the same time, the artists shivering away in the CNE’s sculpting fridge were slightly incredulous themselves of the shock and disappointment spread on thick by social media users chewing the fat — especially since the sculptures are created in full view of passersby. The truth is, most of the butter sculptures displayed at the Ex have always used internal frameworks, known as “armatures,” for support.
“It’s the skeleton of your sculpture,” said Rebecca Hollett, the sculptor featured in the viral Reddit photo. “Any time you see a figure dancing or something, it’s probably got wire it in, it’s probably got plumbing, wood, whatever artists like to use.”
Hollett says sculptors are constantly fighting against gravity and without support, the butter can collapse under its own weight. In fact, the Reddit photo shows her working on her velociraptor sculpture just before it came off the fridge wall and fell on her, she says. Clearly, there is no margarine for error.
“We work with gravity and gravity loves to pull your stuff down,” said Hollett, who has been part of the butter-sculpting team at the Ex for the past four years and is this year’s butter recruiter.
Butter sculptures have been a longtime audience favourite at the Ex. Hollett and her fellow sculptors, Tonya Corkey and Ali Short, have been busy working away in the windowed fridge creating a massive dragon, estimated to weight more than 135 kilograms, Road Runner from Looney Toons, Simba from The Lion King, and a velociraptor of course — all in line with this year’s theme, “Victory!”
Artist Olenka Kleban, a former CNE butter sculptor known for her 2012 sculpture of late former mayor Rob Ford reading a Margaret Atwood novel while leaning on a steering wheel, says it’s no secret that armatures are used in the sculptures.
She notes butter sculpting is similar to clay sculpting. “You typically have a metal support structure inside the clay in order to hold it up as you’re sculpting,” she said.
And no, Kleban’s famous Rob Ford sculpture wasn’t solid butter either. One morning, Kleban says she arrived at the Ex to find that the fridge that keeps the butter at just the right consistency — about 8 C — had broken down over night.
“I came in and he was saggy. So I put an armature in his arm to support his head,” recalled Kleban, who is also the artist behind butter sculptures of Yoda and Conrad, the raccoon who became a social media sensation after his body was found one morning in July 2015 lying near Yonge and Church Sts.
Hollett says she thinks it was the purple colour of the foam — which she got from Home Depot — underlying her sculpture that caught people’s attention.
“It stood out,” she said. “It was funny because the other sculptor in there was saying, ‘I’ve had a pipe and a wood board sticking out of my piece for three days and nobody said anything.’ ” Not all social media users’ milk went bad at the news.
“Given that butter is incredibly soft unless completely frozen, I have always assumed there must be some kind of support structure,” wrote a Reddit user under the moniker “slowpokes.”
“The final result is no less impressive for what’s underneath. Even in the photo … the insides are just flat pieces of styrofoam — the details that make it a dinosaur are still created by the artists, just with less butter and more lasting power.”
Butter late than never for people to know the truth.