Sometimes it takes a death to bring something interesting and important to your attention. So the other day, with nothing better to do but graze the national obituaries – Katie Couric’s father – I saw a headline about the “butter-cow lady.”
Both enquiring and inquiring minds, of course, would choose to pursue this one.
And, as a result, I have something to add to my bucket list: a trip to the Iowa State Fair, which I guess I should do while there are still a couple of family farms standing and Archer Daniel Midlands doesn’t run (ruin?) the entire state.
For those who missed the notice of Norma Lyon’s death, Norma was a sculptor whose medium was butter.
Forget “I can’t believe it’s not butter.” It’s actually somewhat hard for me to grasp that it is butter. And that butter sculpting, even butter cow sculpting, has been around for ages. All that time I’ve been oohing and aahing over the ice statues that are created every year for Boston’s New Year’s celebration. Not to mention oohing and aahing over pictures of elaborate sand castles and sea monsters, the practical folks in the mid west have been focusing on ephemera that can be put to good, practical use once it’s display days are over. Unlike ice sculptures, which just melt down, and sand castles, which just wash out to sea, the remains of a butter-cow day can, presumably, be used on toast, in chocolate chip cookies, and to dip lobster in. (Not that there’s all that much lobster in butter-cow country, but you know what I mean….)
Norma Lyon, who died the other day at the age of 81, was the doyenne of butter sculptors.
From 1960 until 2006, Norma sculpted the butter cow for the Iowa State Fair, which, as anyone who knows anything about musicals knows, is THE State Fair.
For those who don’t happen to know anything about musicals, State Fair was a lesser Rodgers and Hammerstein-er – a couple of decent, hummable/memorable songs: “It Might As Well Be Spring,” and “It’s a Grand Night for Singing” - which was based on the book of the same name by Phil Stong, who just happened to be Norma Lyon’s uncle.
Which should give us all a hint that Norma Lyon herself was not any awe-shucks rube, breaking away from her butter churn just long enough to sculpt her annual cow.
She was a dairy farmer’s wife, and the mother of nine, but she also had a degree in animal science and also took sculpting classes. Her first foray into sculpting was, in fact, ice sculpting for the winter festival at Iowa State University.
Norma was most famous for her Iowa State Fair Butter Cow work, which got 
her on Today, Tonight, and Letterman. Not to mention on To Tell the Truth, where, since 1963 was the peak of my TV-watching years, I probably saw her.
But Norma wasn’t just about The Cow.
In 1984, she began expanding her repertory. With fair officials’ approval, she made a life-size butter sculpture of Garth Brooks. Soon afterward, she followed with Elvis Presley, John Wayne, a diorama of Peanuts comic-strip characters, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a reproduction of “American Gothic,’’ and, in 1999, the Last Supper.
She certainly sounds like someone who had an excellent sense of humor, and one who lived a full, buttery-rich life.
In my tootling around about Norma, I came across another sculptor named Norma Lyon, a California artist who, on her web site, says “I have made art forever.”
Whether it’s true or not, I want this Norma Lyon to be the daughter of Butter Cow Norma Lyon.
And even if someone ventures forth with evidence to the contrary, I think I’ll stand (butter) pat on believing that she is.
Iowa State Fair this year runs from August 11 through August 21. I probably won’t make it this time around, but, as I noted, it’s now on my bucket list. It’s probably not as high up as seeing Venice, but…
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