What's New in the Butter Cow Cooler at the Iowa State Fair?

[Sarah Pratt] This year's cow is a Jersey. Especially Jerseys, I think their eyes are where their soul is. That's what I was working on yesterday and again today. I keep coming back because I really want them to sparkle. This would be my 20th cow as the lead sculptor, so that feels really significant, like a milestone.

It doesn't feel like that long, and maybe sometimes it feels even longer. It's just kind of remarkable. And I look back at some of the cows in the past and think, wow, I've changed how I do this or changed how to do that. And it's fun to look back and see that journey.

[Reporter] Duffy Lyon has been creating the Butter Cow for over 40 years, and she's finally stepped down, and Sarah Pratt is the new creator of the Butter Cow, and Sarah's with us right now. Sarah, tell us a little bit about how you got interested in sculpting Butter Cows.

[Sarah] Well, I always have loved art, and I didn't have the opportunity to take a lot of art classes in high school, so I really enjoyed being a part of sculpting the Butter Cow and getting training as well.

[Reporter] So you started working with Duffy, when? A few years ago?

[Sarah] When I was 13.

[Reporter] Oh, gosh.

[Sarah] So I'm 29 now, so you can do the math on that.

[Sarah] My first year, the scope of what we sculpted in the cooler was smaller. It was the cow, of course, and then it was Brandon Routh as Superman, and then a bust of Bill Riley. As far as the number of pieces in this— in the entire cooler, it was a smaller amount, but I probably took twice as long sculpting everything, certainly sculpting the cow.

The theme is “Meet Me at the Pepsi Clock.” If you've been to see the Pepsi Clock, you know that just the top spins. And so we had the turntable, we've had it since 2011. We knew we could do something to make it spin, but the trick was to try to make this bottom part not spin, which will be all covered.

We used hardware for a turntable here to let them glide and still support each other, and then we put wheels underneath so that the turntable can spin but not be impeded, and then this can still span the distance.

Pepsi clock is just a symbol, right? It's a fun thing that challenged our engineering skills. I'm like, “How do I make this work?” And so it was really exciting to work on that together, but using it as a symbol of coming together and meeting from the diverse corners of our state. Beyond the Pepsi Clock, they will see a group of people representing community members coming together, gathering around the Pepsi Clock, and there'll be little hidden nods to different things that we've learned about the different regions of Iowa as I traveled and did classes and met people, shared my sculptures, and they created their own butter sculptures in the classes, and then seeing what they sculpted and using those themes of things that were important in their communities hidden within the sculpture.

I do always strive to have some connection to Iowa, and sometimes it's just a small whimsical connection, and sometimes it's a more deep historical connection. And I feel like this one really is rooted in Iowa community and coming together. I can't believe I get to be a part of this.