Farm Show butter sculptors find worldwide fame
Art is often permanent, hanging on museum walls for centuries, or cast in bronze and erected outdoors to face the elements and the changing tide of history. The art Jim Victor and Marie Pelton make is transitory and delicious over lobster.
TheConshohockencouplehave worked with chocolate, cheese and ice, but butter’s brought them worldwideacclaim.Together,they have created large butter sculptures for agricultural shows and fairs all over the country, includingmostofthePennsylvaniaFarm Shows since the mid-’90s. This month, the couple unveiled the 52ndannualAmericanDairyAssociationNorthEastbuttersculpture at the virtual New York State Fair, an 800-pound pandemic-theme piece — including children remote-learning and a masked milkman—thattookthem10days to create.
Few of their pieces last very long, though one chocolate Statue of Liberty has stood in Las Vegas since 2014.
There’s no official word on whether Pennsylvania’s 105th annualFarmShow,whichisgoing virtual in January, will feature a butter sculpture, but it’s often a must-see for attendees taking selfies. Last year’s butter sculpture featured mascots from Pittsburgh andPhiladelphia,includingGritty, the bizarre and beloved symbol of the Flyers and perhaps the city itself. They spent about 10 days sculpting it.
For the January Farm Show, “they haven’t made a formal announcement, but we think it’s definitely going to be a go,” Pelton said.
Butter is not what Victor, 75, and Pelton, 55, were envisioning when they attended the Pennsyl
vaniaAcademyoftheFineArtson North Broad Street. Marble, clay and stone have been the standard sculpting mediums for millennia, and they both have worked with those traditional materials, along with 50-pound blocks of butter.
Onarecentweekdayafternoon, the couple sat beside each other in a pen on a West Chester farm, sculpting horse miniatures in clay with their fingers and wooden tools. Wruben, Pelton’s Dutch Warmblood horse, sniffed the clay fromtimeto time. Thecouple sculpt Wruben and other farm animals to sharpen their skills, but theyalsohavecontemplatedteachingclassesinsculpting,bothonline and in person.
“Especially during this
pandemic time period where our businesshascompletelystalled,we were thinking what could we do to change upourbusiness,” Pelton said. “It’s typically something you wouldfindinculinaryschools,and we’re not chefs.”
Pelton and Victor have seen the merging of art and food grow over the last decade, particularly on cable television, where shows about elaborate cakes, baking competitions, and chef challenges have become wildly popular. They may have something in the worksthemselves,butsaidthey’re required to keep mumaboutit.
Sculpting with butter, done on site, has unique pros and cons, Victor said. At the Farm Show, the sculpture is displayedinarefriger
ated glass room, as butter is prone tomeltquickly.Meltingbuttercan make the floor slippery, and on a few occasions, when sculpting in their outdoor mobile booth, the sun has melted some sculptures, causing the pieces to slide to the floor.
Victor said the sculpting room isn’tascoldaspeoplewouldthink, often 65 degrees. He prefers his butter to be warmerandsofter.
“That’s the beauty of it,” hesaid. “You can control the temperature and control the consistency of butter.”
Sculptural armatures, akin to skeletons, are usually made of aluminum wire, though for the heavier butter sculptures, steel is used. The butter is often donated
by large national producers like Land O’ Lakes or Keller’s, and no, it can’t be melted and drizzled on popcorn.
“It’s waste butter we get from plants,” Pelton said. “It’s stuff that’s been extruded or cleaned out, or stuff that’s been damaged, or generally can’t be sold to the public.”
Afterward,thebutterisdonated to farms that have an anaerobic digester, which breaks down organic material and turns it into a fuel.
“Actually,1,000poundsofbutter canturninto80poundsofbiofuel,” Pelton said.
Victor said his first food sculpturewasachocolateportraitofthe actor Mickey Rooney for a Broadway play. His first Farm Show sculpturewasmadein1995.Marie began working with him in 2000, though she also paints. They’ve sculpted butter onPrince Edward Island and chocolate in China, and they’ve been invited to sculpt in Australia and the United Arab Emirates.
Their largest project was a butter sculpture of Paris that weighed 2,370 pounds. It was createdforlast fall’s BestofFrance festival, organized by the French community in New York City to showcase French brands in the United States.
In terms of farm shows, Victor andPeltonsaid,theconceptisoften suggestedbythedairyassociations andstateagriculturaldepartments thathirethem.Sometimes,people wanttoomanyfeatures in a sculpture,andtheyhavetotoneitdown.
“There has to be a focal point andit has to beinteresting fromall sides of thesculpture,” Peltonsaid.
In 2020, they said, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman pushed hard for Gritty. Fetterman said it was an honor to unveil the buttery Gritty.
The husband-and-wife duo declined to say how much they earn for an 800-pound butter sculpture.Victorsaidit’smorethan the $5,000 he waspaid for his first FarmShowpiece25yearsago. Art istheirmainsourceofincome,and they try to take on at least 10 projects a year, most of them during the“butterseason”ofsummerand earlyfall,whenmostofthefairsare scheduled.
Victorsaidsomefoodsareeasier to sculpt than others, but he’s always up for a challenge, as long as it not’s soup.
“Ithinkanythingispossible,but some things are just more difficult,” hesaid. “Ice creamwouldbe tough, because it has to be so cold. If you tried to do hummus, I don’t thinkitwouldwork.Peanutbutter, maybe.”