Alumni Sculpt Place in Butter-Cow History

The day the cow's udder fell off provided a valuable learning experience for UC artists: Do not sculpt a life-sized 1,000-pound butter bovine too near the door of the walk-in cooler.

Today, the butter sculptures in the Ohio State Fair’s Dairy Products Building, open through Aug. 17, feature Bessie and her calf at the front of the display case. The more delicate sculptures of people take up residence in the rear.

It’s easy to see how the mistake happened. People numb from working without gloves in a 42-degree room all day, several days in a row, could easily miss the fact that the area next to the door gradually grew a few degrees warmer the more often the door opened.

One morning when the team reported to work, they discovered the truth. The weight of a dangling udder was too much for the softened butter; overnight, Bessie had become Beaufort.

Four years of sculpting the cow and company has been a continual learning experience for the three UC alumni who make up half the team. Todd Myers, Jan LaGory and Paul Brooke, former students of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, travel annually from Cincinnati with three colleagues to spend a week working on the dairy display. Ironically, their efforts impress total strangers in Columbus more than their own friends in Cincinnati.

“Nobody knows about the butter cow in Cincinnati,” says Myers, DAAP ’97, “but in Columbus, people nearly worship it.” Indeed, the creamy critter, who made her debut in the 1920s, is such a celebrity that directional signs around the fairgrounds point to rides, shows, restrooms and the “butter cow.” In former years, she was featured on “Late Night with David Letterman” and in Sports Illustrated.

Each year, project design and planning start in early July. On the Sunday before the fair, team members move to Columbus and begin four days of continuous sculpting, approximately 250 hours total. As long as udders remain in place, Thursday is mostly a clean-up day before the fair’s Friday opening. The cleanup is also something of an unveiling, in that no one can see through the greased glass before that.

Grease is certainly a prevailing danger on the job. Working with 40-pound butter bricks all day, team members with greasy hands sit and lie on the floor to sculpt from various angles, creating an immensely slippery work environment. “My worst fear is falling and hitting the cow on the way down,” says LaGory, DAAP ’81, cringing at the thought.

Although team members proudly claim no one has ever turned a sculpture into soft-spread, they still hold particular admiration for LaGory — not for his steady feet, but because he handles cold confinement so well. “I can stay in longer than most,” he admits.

“But three hours is probably my limit. Then I have to come out and warm up. Forty-two degrees, stretched out over an entire day, five days in a row, is really cold.”

Odor is another negative work condition. Those surprised that butter could stink have never smelled 2,000 pounds of it concentrated in a small enclosed area. “The first whiff in the morning is the worst,” Brooke says.

Originally, team members were invited to join the cow crew while working as toy sculptors at Hasbro, which sponsored the exhibit four years ago. Today, the men mostly work independently, both professionally and at the fair. “They give us free milk shakes,” Myers says. “We basically work for tips.”

Perfecting their skills over the last four years, the men agree this year’s display is the best, down to milking veins popping out on the Holstein’s temples and the individual hairs in her swishing tail. Keeping the cow and her calf company are a buttery Orville and Wilbur Wright, who display an airplane motor and propeller — all life-sized and historically accurate. This is “one of the most intricate and detailed displays yet,” acknowledges Jenny Hubble, spokesperson for the American Dairy Association, an exhibit sponsor.

Much of the work is a challenge, the men concede. “Butter isn’t exactly prime sculpting material,” LaGory points out. “Humidity condenses on it,” Myers adds, “and the water keeps it from sticking properly.”

Which brings up the question, “Salted or unsalted?” “Strictly unsalted,” Myers states. “Salt would create more water problems.”

While the team realizes too much candor could destroy much of the cow’s mystique, the alumni were willing to reveal two secrets:

• The cow is not solid butter, but butter sculpted over a wire framework that enables the critter to stand on those thin legs.
• After the fair, butter is scraped off and discarded as rancid.

LaGory is a little hesitant to spread the word on the latter. “We prefer to let everyone to think of it as Frosty the Snowman: It just melts away and is reborn the next year,” he says with a grin.