The Big Number

You may slather butter on bread and lobster, but people in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania have an artsy use for butter. A thousand pounds of it. People from far and wide flock to see butter sculptures– and those are just the cardiologists.

Every year at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, the largest indoor agricultural show in America, artists spend weeks sculpting butter into art.

It’s been a tradition since 1991. From a huge Benjamin Franklin and the 2002 commemoration of the heroes of the September 11 attack butter is a big draw at the farm show.

This year’s sculpture depicts the show’s theme “Blue Ribbon Experience” and features a young girl with a cow, a 4H member with baby chicks, and a couple showing off apples and pies behind a quilt and spinning wheelIt took 2 people 14 days to sculpt this year’s entry.

After the show, the butter is converted to methane and powers a farm for up to 3 days.