The State Fair’s butter sculpture celebrated America’s 250th anniversary and its 58th year in existence. The artists behind the annual exhibit are celebrating a quarter century creating the sculpture for the fair. For Jim Victor and Marie Pelton it was a labor of love sculpting 800 pounds of butter into a work of art. They estimated this year’s sculpture at about 600 pounds.
“This is sort of a scaled down version. Basically, the figures aren’t as tall as they normally are,“ said Pelton. “Many years the figures are life-size or close to it. So, here we have, in this particular display, smaller sized figures and then with the centerpiece sort of the landscape of the fair and the Empire State Building being taller and then the tallest thing is the fireworks.”
The sculpture’s theme, “Milk. Memories. Tradition. Rooted in New York,” celebrated the people, traditions and moments which brought people together, according to Victor.
“It’s the 250th Anniversary of the country with a New York edge to it,” said Victor. “We have iconic stuff in there from New York. The scoreboard at Cooperstown baseball [Double Day] field.”
Victor said the smaller figures and other finer portions of the sculpture, are about as miniature as anyone can get to carve butter into art. It also tells the story of the New York State Fair, the country’s oldest since 1841. After the fair, the sculpture’s butter heads to Noblehurst Farms in Linwood, New York where it’s recycled into renewable energy.
