It has been exactly 10 years since I first attended the Iowa State Fair. It has been 7 years since I last attended. I am still adamantly in love with the ISF to a fault. Ten years ago the film crew I worked with spent hot, sweaty august days lugging cameras into refrigerated rooms filled with molding butter and accompanying Norma Duffy Lyons to her daily lunch of state fair Chinese food. We spend the nights sipping Stroh’s beer around a campfire and listening the The Hawk radio station 97.3. And by the end of the summer we had over 40 hours of tape (which, as far as I know is still unlogged and unedited). I joined this crew because I had loved the Buttercow in Illinois as a child, but by August 20, 2003 I was a true believer in the Buttercow of Iowa.

So you can imagine my horror when I learned yesterday that an animal welfare group poured red paint on the Buttercow in protest (read the story via NPR). 

I was at a baseball game with my parents when I received word via email on my phone. “Oh no!” I gasped, and my mother thought I had read that a friend was in some sort of trouble. I told her the news and my honest first commentary was “don’t they know they reuse the butter for four years?”

I think it’s important to contextualize my comments here and note that at the time of documentary making, I had been vegetarian for seven years. I was never vegan for more than a month (yogurt! goat cheese! honey! beautiful leather frye boots!), but I made it a full twelve years of vegetarianism before giving up during fieldwork in Bolivia. I now quite enjoy fried chicken, pork chicharones, cuy (roasted guinea pig), and anticuchos (grilled beef heart), among many other forms of meat. But I also still truly believe that vegetarianism is far more environmentally friendly and sustainable than regular meat-eating. That said, I ultimately recognize that one’s ability and desire to eat meat or not are substantially culturally influenced. Things like purchasing power, national location, regional location, local location, racial identity, gender, religion, subcultural affiliation or identification, and who knows what else profoundly structure not only what we perceive as desirable food but also what we are physically able to eat.

So my reaction is more complicated than it may appear. Though I don’t generally condone destructive practices as protest, I also don’t wholly disagree with the protestors’ intentions. Helping to thaw 600 pounds of overly cooled butter by running my hands through it may have improved it’s consistency for sculpting but also made me shun the stuff for more than a month. There is something foul and inedible about massive amounts of dairy product. But in the end, with my apologies to anti-speciesist friends, I have to conclude that the protestors’ actions were misguided. 

Back in 2007 I argued that the Buttercow was a symbol of citizenship in the sense that in it’s iconicity it represented pride and intimate knowledge, moving beyond citizenship as simply claims to rights and responsibilities. I returned to this argument when writing for the Food Culture Index blog, suggesting that Minnesota Dairy Princess Katie Miron connects butter art to Midwestern values using words like “hard work,” “dedication,” “wholesome,” and “nutritious.” Butter art for her is a way to both reinscribe these values within the community, and communicate the values to outsiders. Like the colonial map, it demarcates “us” from “them,” and acts as a logo, and becomes a “pure sign” or emblem for a certain kind of community affiliation.

And, like all icons, the Buttercow adapts to symbolize prevailing social issues and political perspectives. What was once a symbol of progress, now has come to be a nostalgic representation of a disappearing way of life. As family farms disappear and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations replace them, the Buttercow stands as a testament to the value placed on farmers who practice true animal husbandry and forms of agriculture that stand in opposition to the CFO’s that have become so ubiquitous. The 600 pounds of butter used in Illinois’s Buttercow comes from Prairie Farms, which is a farmer owned cooperative whose cows are free range and 100% hormone free. Put simply, to it's supporters, the Buttercow is a symbol of family farmers who intimately know and care for their animals, and is seen as oppositional to the forms of industrialized agriculture that exploit animals to their breaking point before discarding them.

Of course, many animal liberation groups see no distinction between large scale animal exploitation and that which is family owned. But that is precisely my point. In ignoring or misunderstanding the distinction, I believe such protestors are alienating those who could be powerful allies. And besides, pouring red paint on the butter only means that instead of reusing it next year, they’ll have to get a brand new 600 pound batch.


see my writing at food culture index or hit the "butter" tag to the right to see my earlier fieldnotes

The iconicity of the buttercow is even more apparent as it remains in the context of the state fair. As agriculture shifts in the United States, from a family-based mode of production to a more and more mechanized and large-scale industrial complex, the meanings associated with “authentic” representations of agricultural livelihoods change. The icon of the buttercow has shifted from an emblem of pride in the dairy industry’s success to a nostalgic symbol of the disappearing culture of family agriculture. Singer writes that such cultural displays “[cast] much light on the way in which cultural themes and values are communicated as well as on processes of social and cultural change." The context in which butter sculpture now exists gives immediacy to the art form as the social dramatic action of transformed farmland takes shape in and legitimizes butter sculpture as culturally and artistically important. 

The buttercow, as an icon, also forms the locus for the construction of cultural identity. Identity is, at its foundation, the ways that people index or perform sameness and difference from one another. Scholars such as Clifford have written on the ways that “international” or “non-western” art marks difference by emphasizing the “primitive,” “exotic,” or “tribal” nature of the art. The buttercow works in the converse, illustrating a sense of commonality for its enthusiasts. Bucholtz and Hall suggest that the dichotomy between genuineness and artiface is a key site for the instantiation of identity. The authenticity of the buttercow as confirmed by the context of the state fair, then, is central to the successful performance or indexing of a rural Iowan or Illinoisan identity. To know the buttercow is to say something about your own history, experiences, and values. Not every state has a buttercow. And not everyone in the state even knows what the buttercow is. Like playing euchre in La Paz, it is not just a pastime, but a performance of real Midwestern identity. 

And so I will end with one of my favorite quotes from Renato Rosaldo:
Culture lends significance to human experience by selecting from and organizing it.  It refers broadly to the forms through which people make sense of their lives, rather than more narrowly to the opera or art museums.  It does not inhabit a set-aside domain as does, for example, that of politics or economics. From the pirouettes of classical ballet to the most brute of brute facts, all human conduct is culturally mediated. Culture encompasses the everyday and the esoteric, the mundane and the elevated, the ridiculous and the sublime. Neither high nor low, culture is all-pervasive. (1989: p. 26)  

Clifford, James
1991  Four Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections. In Exhibiting Cultures, I. Karp & S. D. Lavine, eds. pp. 212-254. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Rosaldo, Renato
1993  Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.

Singer, Milton
1972  When a Great Tradition Modernizes: An Anthropological Approach to Modern Civilization. New York, Washington, London: Praeger Publishers.

Perhaps reading the buttercow within its state fair context as Americana, rather than art, is what has kept it so sacred to ISF viewers. Its authenticity remains assumed, because it has not been removed from its specific spatial and temporal context. Though the notion of authenticity has been tossed around and contested by anthropologists in recent years, to go back to earlier instantiations of the term may be useful. Shepard suggests that we must move beyond the idea that subjectivity to market forces destroys authenticity. However, in this instance, the fact that the buttercow remains in its original context outside of the “art world” preserves a sense of authenticity for its enthusiasts and viewers.

Desai argues that “high culture” art objects are revered based on the aesthetic experience they provide, in ways that could not be achieved by a reproduction. The buttercow as well, is read as authentic because the context of the state fair is part of the experience of viewing the buttercow. It is an object that to many people is symbolic of home, family, roots, and notions of community based in actual physical proximity and personal knowledge.

Thus, much as Anderson argues the census, the map, and the museum shaped notions of identity and community, the buttercow stands as symbol of “us-ness.” Like the colonial map, it demarcates “us” from “them,” and acts as a logo, and becomes a “pure sign” or emblem for a certain kind of community affiliation. Its presence at the state fair attests to its authenticity, and to view the buttercow in an art gallery or other space outside of the agricultural milieu, would be to surrender it to the Other who cannot appreciate its intricacies, thus commodifying and degrading its form. 

Despite the dichotomy I have constructed between state fair and museum, Anderson’s discussion of the museum as a contributor to imagined communities is helpful as well. Anderson focuses on archaeological exhibits, rather than artistic ones, and presents the colonial museum as a context in which peoples were able to systematically study their history. Further, the state constructed museums with the maintenance of ideological structures in mind. As Desai writes, “Authenticity, whether cultural or aesthetic, is a notion that serves political interests.” The buttercow, as displayed at the state fair, evokes place-based pride and nostalgia in its viewers, (re)connecting them to the state (of Iowa, or Illinois), and the agricultural lifestyle being promoted within the fair. Much like the Monumental archaeology Anderson presents, the buttercow “allow[s] the state to appear as the guardian to a generalized, but also local Tradition,” in an attempt to revive prestige. 

But where the buttercow parts from Anderson’s examination of colonial iconicity is in the work of reproduction. Anderson writes that it was the states ability to reproduce the icon—exemplified in the postage stamp—was instrumental in the logoization of state symbols. The buttercow presents an interesting example, because in some ways it has been logo-ized. The 1993 & 2011 Iowa State Fair collectors' pins were images of the buttercow. And the Iowa State Fair edition of the Monopoly board game features a space for the buttercow. But even these commodifications remain on a small scale among collector-enthusiasts, and are not necessarily readily available to outsiders. These ephemera stand not as widely circulating objects, but as limited edition symbolic items that allow enthusiasts to perform legitimate claims to identities connected to the buttercow or fair [much like travelers’ collections of photographs and hostel bracelets].  Thus, even in the process of logoization the authenticity of the buttercow is not only preserved, but bolstered through the limited circulation of ephemera. 
 

Desai, Dipti
2000 Imaging Difference: The Politics of Representation in Multicultural Art Education. Studies in Art Education 41(2):114-129.

Shepherd, Robert
2002 Commodification, Culture and Tourism. Tourist Studies 2:183-196.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5

_Unlike Iowans, many urbanites from outside the Midwest see the Buttercow as kitschy folk craft rather than true art.  Some who are unaccustomed to rural life find quaintness in the Buttercow, rather than seeing it as the manifestation of highly skilled ability.  As fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi ironically quipped after seeing the Buttercow, “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a life-sized cow sculpted out of butter…its fabulous.” 

Though it would be easy to assume that the dismissal of butter is a product of its medium (butter) or form (cattle), both have been featured in highly regarded art installations. In 1999 the city of Chicago launched its famous “Cows on Parade” exhibit, in which local artists designed fiberglass cow statues, and exhibited them in the city. Eventually, the cows were auctioned, raising more than $20 million of charitable organizations. That same year, Margin, a Chicago art gallery, housed works of 35 local artists all related to butter in an exhibition appropriately titled Butter.Similarly, in 2003, Matthew Barney launched his Guggenheim exhibit in New York, which incorporated a number of sculptures in butter and Vaseline.

_ Instead, the display area rather than medium or form of the art is what contextualizes the works as craft rather than art. As Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Coco Fusco demonstrated in their series of “Two Undiscovered Amerindians” performances, the context of art is integral to the ways in which audiences interpret. In these performances Fusco and Gomez-Peña place themselves, dressed in a hybrid of modern flashy attire and pseudo-indigenous garments, in a cage with props such as televisions, plants, and a hammock. Presented as “undiscovered Amerindians,” in public plazas, natural history museums, and art galleries, they interacted with audiences through the bars of their room-sized cage. As Fusco later wrote, “We did not anticipate that our self-conscious commentary…could be believable. We underestimated public faith in museums as bastions of truth and institutional investment in that role.” She continued:

Consistently from city to city, more than half of our visitors believed our fiction and thought we were “real,” with the exception of the Whitney, where we experienced the art world equivalent of such misperceptions: some assumed that we were not the artists, but rather actors who had been hired by another artist.

Thus, their work confirmed the ways the context of the natural history museum they were taken to be “real” specimens of “undiscovered Amerindians” and in art galleries they were assumed to be performance art.

_So it is not a far stretch to suggest then, that the buttercow, amidst prize-winning squashes and anamatronic milk cartons singing about the health benefits of dairy products, butter sculpture presents itself and is interpreted as a craft, rather than high art.  

But, like Fusco and Gomez-Peña, Duffy works “within disciplines that blur distinctions.” If placed in the Guggenheim, her sculptures may be described as avant-garde. But in the Dairy Building, the sculptures are “pure Americana,” as 2003 Presidential hopeful Bob Graham described it.   

_ Fusco, Coco
1994  The Other History of Intercultural Performance. The Drama Review 38(1):143-167.

My guest post has now appeared on Food Culture Index. Its a much shortened version of this series on butter art: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

_ Butter sculpture made its premiere in the United States in 1911 at the Iowa State Fair with the first Buttercow [ed note: I stated 1908 incorrectly in the Food Culture Index post]. The sculpture was sponsored by the Beatrice Creamery, who wished to display the success of the local dairy industry and promote local products. The buttercow as advertisment worked, with a six percent increase in sales the next year, but it also came to occupy an iconic position for locals. In essence, the Buttercow came to symbolize enthusiasts see as Midwestern values. When 2010 Minnesota Dairy Princess (Princess Kay of the Milky Way) Katie Miron speaks of the Dairy industry she uses words like “hardwork,” “dedication,” “wholesome” and “nutritious.” She connects these concepts to longstanding “American Values” and suggests that dairy farming, in many ways, represents the long held ideal of hard work leading to success. Butter art for her is a way to both promote these values within the community, and communicate the values to outsiders.

_
And, like all icons, the Buttercow adapts to symbolize prevailing social issues and political perspectives. What was once a symbol of progress, now has come to be a nostalgic representation of a disappearing way of life. As family farms disappear and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations replace them, the Buttercow stands as a testament to the idealization of the past and the values associated with it.

With intimate knowledge of dairy farming and cows declining, those with the expertise to sculpt accurate likenesses in butter are disappearing as well. Duffy sculpted a buttercow for the Illinois State Fair as well, from 1969-2001. In 2003, many people felt the new sculptor’s work did not live up to the standard Duffy had set. I overheard numerous dairy farmers and others experienced in bovine anatomy talk of the sculpture;s shortcomings. Duffy, who had earned a degree in Animal Science from Iowa State University, had an intimate knowledge of bovine anatomy. She sculpted specific breeds, and even the veins on her sculpted udders were anatomically correct. However, when the new sculptor’s cow was unveiled, a long time Dairy Association employee scoffed: “This one just looks like a mule with tits!” As lifeways change, old customs become endowed with new meaning. Butter sculptures may act as a reflector of the agricultural community.  As knowledge of small family farms disappears in the wake of the rise of factory farms, these artworks lose part of their realism.  However, as contexts change, art and tradition take on new implications and their relevance becomes increasingly valuable as symbols for examining the past and considering the future.

I will shortly be writing a post for the blog, Food Culture Index on Midwestern US butter sculpture. As such, I've been thinking through a lot of the issues associated with Buttercows and Butterheads: the transition from factory farming to CAFOs, women's role in agriculture, iconicity and nostalgia, tensions between popular culture, folk crafts, and high art--thus class, distinction, authenticity. I should be writing a dissertation right now, but I thought I would work through some of these issues in Fieldnotes as well. Here is Part 1. For more, read Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

On Monday, 27 June 2011, I was riding in the passenger seat while my new friend Alejandro gave me evening tour of La Paz, Bolivia. My Viva cell phone rang and it was a number from the U.S. When I answered, my mother had bad news. I braced myself, and she told me “Duffy died.” 

Duffy, or Norma Duffield Lyon was “The Buttercow Lady,” who sculpted life-sized cows from butter for forty six years at several Midwestern state fairs. As one could imagine, describing this phenomenon to Alé was a challenge.

I first met Duffy in the summer of 2003, when I was a recent college graduate. With few job prospects on the horizon for a reasonably good student with Bachelors degrees in anthropology and performance studies, I joined up with a team of recent film Bachelors and MFA students and headed to the Iowa State Fair.

Duffy, “The Buttercow Lady” was a legend in her own right. For decades she had been sculpting life-sized cows out of butter. She starts with choosing a dairy cattle breed (Holstein, Guernsey, Jersey, Brown Swiss, Ayershire, and Milking Shorthorn), then works from sketches or photographs. She places 500-600 pounds of butter (about 2,400 sticks) on a wooden and chicken wire armature. At first, Duffy adds large handfuls to the frame to approximate the shape of the cow, and eventually fine-tunes the form with smaller additions of butter. Working both with her hands and sculpting tools in a refrigerated display case, the process can take between two days and two weeks.

Duffy would usually schedule her work to be finished in the first days of the fair, so that attendees could see her in process.  Many fairgoers consider the Buttercow to be the definitive fair experience. Information booth volunteers told us that the most common questions they are asked are, “Where are the bathrooms? and Where’s the Buttercow?” (in the dairy building, of course). Some life-long devotees of the buttercow travel from the west coast, or will pay hundreds of dollars to assist with sculpting the tail through the fair’s Blue Ribbon Foundation. When the film crew stopped at a local sandwich shop for lunch, the twenty-year-old cashier told us, “Oh the buttercow. That thing used to make me so happy when I was a kid.”