The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Butter sculptor retires her knife
She created likenesses of women’s faces at the state fair for decades.
Photos and paintings can be lovely, but if you really want to impress, get your likeness chiseled into a 90-pound block of butter.
Every year at the Minnesota State Fair, a dozen young dairy pageant finalists are sculpted live as part of a spectacle, a tradition that dates back to 1965.
The butter busts began as a way to bring attention to Minnesota’s dairy industry and have remained a draw since, as thousands of visitors show up every August to watch the painstaking artistry while a winner is named Princess Kay of the Milky Way.
“It would be hard to find a person in Minnesota who doesn’t know about Princess Kay of the Milky Way,” said sculptor Linda Christensen, 79, about the contest naming a state dairy ambassador.
For almost 50 years, Christensen has been the principal artist to create the busts. She uses a kitchen knife she calls “Old Faithful” to carve the faces into salted butter. Each one takes about six hours.
Now, after churning out more than 500 princess butter heads over nearly five decades, Christensen has decided to retire her knife. She turned her last 90-pound block into a creamy masterpiece at the fairgrounds last month from her glass-enclosed studio.
“You learn to get used to working in a rotating glass booth with everyone watching you,” she said. “You have to bundle up, because the temperature is set at 39 degrees. There probably aren’t a lot of artists who’d like to work with cold butter, but I really enjoyed it.”
Christensen, who grew up in Minneapolis, said it has been an honor to work as an industry butter artist. She moved to Oceanside, California, 18 years ago, but returned to her home state every August to keep up the tradition. “That’s what I’ll miss the most: Getting to know the ‘princesses’ who would show up in my chilly booth, all bundled up, wearing their tiaras. We’d spend about six hours together while I made their butter heads.”
The Princess Kay of the Milky Way contest is not based on looks. It is a goodwill ambassador program focused on leadership skills and “promoting the goodness of dairy products,” according to the Minnesota Dairy Princess Handbook.
The princess is selected based on how well judges think she will promote Minnesota’s dairy industry at trade shows and community events. Women who live or work on dairy farms are encouraged to compete in county contests every year, with the finalists advancing to the Minnesota State Fair.
The top dozen ended up in Christensen’s see-through butter booth as she chiseled their likenesses into edible works of art.
Christensen began the niche portraits in 1972 when the American Dairy Association of Minnesota (now known as Midwest Dairy) was looking for a new artist to make giant princess butter heads at the state fairgrounds in Falcon Heights, outside of St. Paul.
Christensen had recently graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and was recommended by one of her instructors to make sculptures of the pageant’s finalists.
She’s turning over her knife to Gerry Kulzer, a 52-year-old art teacher from Litchfield, Minnesota, who was chosen as her successor.
Past winners have included Kristi Pettis Osterlund, who in 1996 was crowned as the 43rd Princess Kay of the Milky Way. She took her butter bust home to Winthrop, Minnesota, where it was kept frozen in a meat locker until the last month of her reign. She then decided to melt down her likeness and serve it to her community to slather on corn on the cob.
“I thought that a sweet corn feed would be the perfect way to thank everyone for their support,” said Osterlund, now 46 and living in Billings, Montana.
She and her mother fired up the largest slow-cooker they could find, cut the butter head into big chunks and melted it one batch at a time, she said.
“I remember cringing when my mom took a butcher knife to the head,” she said. “That was a little emotional for me. But it was such a fun and memorable party.”
Donna Schmidt Moenning, a Princess Kay finalist in 1980, opted for a different approach.
Moenning shared the back half of her butter bust with friends and neighbors in Marietta, Minnesota, for baking projects. But then she froze the face portion. It’s still sitting in her deep freeze, next to the pork chops, she said.
“It’s held up amazingly well,” said Moenning, now 60.
“Tossing [my butter head] out was never an option — it’s just too unique,” she said. “I still pull it out now and then to show the kids and friends. It’s a little piece of Minnesota State Fair history.”
For Christensen, who was once asked to create a butter bust of David Letterman, that is the ultimate compliment.