'Maintaining traditions': Utah State Fair celebrates 170 years

SALT LAKE CITY — While many people have late summer and early fall traditions, Matt McNaughtan's annual custom is quite unique: spending days in a fridge sculpting a cow out of butter.

McNaughtan's 19th butter cow is now on display at the Utah State Fair. This year's dairy masterpiece features a cow coming out of a birthday cake, surrounded by balloons and other farm animals celebrating the 170th year of the fair.

"It is bizarre, and sometimes you are a celebrity in some circles," McNaughtan joked. "It's one of those things you can put in a 'two truths and a lie.'"

As an art teacher and ceramic artist, the butter cow is a fun extra thing he gets to do each year.

"To be part of this for so long ... I can't believe it," he said.

While McNaughtan has been partaking in the peculiar tradition for almost two decades, this year's sculpture is his co-butter artist's 28th butter cow. Debbie Brown said she will likely stop after her 30th cow, so people only have a few more years to enjoy her creations.

"It is certainly an interesting concept to sculpt out of this food, but it's just something to celebrate butter and dairy and the agricultural community that we have," McNaughtan said.

The sculpture is made up of around 600 pounds of butter, which is frozen in buckets afterward and reused over the years. Past designs have ranged from a royal wedding to a "Hunger Games" theme to a classic cow jumping over a moon.

"I think you'd be surprised at how little planning we do. We kind of make so much of it as we are going; that's where the fun is. We start out with a basic idea, and then sometimes we make a welded stick figure to support the skeleton, and sometimes we are there and have bolt cutters, and we're chopping things off because we changed our minds," McNaughtan said.

Sculpting in a refrigerated box about 10 feet long, 5 feet wide and 6 feet high has its challenges, especially when their fingers start getting slippery from handling the butter. But the beloved tradition has gained a fan following since it first began in 1989.

Utah State Fair deputy executive director Nicki Claeys said she is always in awe of what the butter sculptors create. Although the butter cow is a tradition that started much later in the fair's history, preserving traditions is what the fair is all about.

Over the years, the fair has evolved, but many of the iconic aspects of the fair have remained. Agricultural contests have always been a staple, and art has always had its hand in the fair as well, she said, even though some of the specific breeds or mediums may have shifted over the years.

"Everything we do is about maintaining traditions and maintaining the history of Utah. And we will continue to do that for another 170 years. That's exactly what we're here for," Claeys said.

She loves hearing stories of people whose families have been participating and competing for generations. Last year, a family was going through their stuff and found a bunch of poultry ribbons from the 1930s at the fair.

"They will bring them to us, and they're keepsakes to us. We will value and treasure those forever," she said. "One of the most fun things that we can do here is go look through photo albums from the past. I spend time in offseason looking and researching our history. I'm always looking for more."

In the art realm, the fair has demonstrators in the fiber arts building showing bobbin lace making and other traditional intricate textile art techniques, alongside newer art mediums such as diamond art.

"It's amazing to think those have been happening for generations. It is exciting to continue those types of traditions," Claeys said.

Other fair attendees have their own traditions of getting a caricature done every year, trying all of the new foods or getting their picture taken for the giant buttons. Claeys said she loves getting to work for the fair and be a part of something bigger than herself that has lasted for so many years.

"There's some things that people come and do every single time. We have people spend the entire day, open to close, and just walk every inch of the fairpark. It's really neat to know that we have people that love it as much as we do," Claeys said.

As part of the 170th anniversary, the fair has been sporadically giving away prizes to attendees to say "thank you" for the support over the years. The fair's entertainment also has a bit of a "throwback" vibe, celebrating the past with an extreme lumberjack show and an old-fashioned strongman performer.

The Utah State Fair is open through Sept. 20.

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