WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.320 I want you to picture a very specific kind of 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:06.980 chaos. Okay, lay it on me. So it's mid -August. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.339 You're in the American Midwest. Oh, so it is 00:00:09.339 --> 00:00:12.619 hot. It's like 90 degrees, 90 % humidity. It's 00:00:12.619 --> 00:00:15.339 just brutal. Right. And you are surrounded by 00:00:15.339 --> 00:00:18.899 the smell of corn dogs, diesel fumes from tractors, 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:21.239 and, you know, maybe just a little bit of livestock 00:00:21.239 --> 00:00:23.679 manure. You're painting a very vivid picture 00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:26.579 of the Iowa State Fair right now. Exactly. It's 00:00:26.579 --> 00:00:28.859 sensory overload. Yeah. It's loud and sticky. 00:00:29.019 --> 00:00:32.000 But then you step into this specific building, 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:34.219 right? And you look through a glass window into 00:00:34.219 --> 00:00:37.460 a refrigerated case. Which has to feel amazing 00:00:37.460 --> 00:00:39.359 in that heat. It was 40 degrees inside there. 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:44.119 And it's quiet. But staring back at you, bathed 00:00:44.119 --> 00:00:46.640 in this kind of weird fluorescent light, is a 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:49.719 perfect two -scale recreation of The Last Supper. 00:00:49.859 --> 00:00:52.479 Da Vinci's Last Supper? Yes. But it's not paint. 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:55.560 It's not clay. It is sculpted entirely out of 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:58.179 salted butter. Which is just, it's such a wild 00:00:58.179 --> 00:01:00.560 concept. It is. And today for our deep dives, 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:02.020 we are looking at the woman who made that image 00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:04.680 possible. We are talking about Norma Duffield's 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:07.500 Dong Lion. Better known to most people as the 00:01:07.500 --> 00:01:10.219 Butter Cow Lady. The Butter Cow Lady. And I know 00:01:10.219 --> 00:01:11.920 you hear that title and you think... You think 00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:14.120 it's a novelty act. Exactly. Like something you'd 00:01:14.120 --> 00:01:17.159 see on a weird travel vlog. But... We've got 00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:19.079 all these notes here from her Wikipedia page, 00:01:19.180 --> 00:01:21.879 her biographical records, and her life story 00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:24.379 is it's really something else. It's surprisingly 00:01:24.379 --> 00:01:26.659 complex because when you actually dig into the 00:01:26.659 --> 00:01:29.480 source material, it's a story about a woman who 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:32.459 was flat out rejected from the scientific career 00:01:32.459 --> 00:01:35.299 she wanted. Yeah. And she somehow managed to 00:01:35.299 --> 00:01:38.599 pivot and turn this incredibly perishable dairy 00:01:38.599 --> 00:01:42.859 product into. A legitimate artistic medium. So 00:01:42.859 --> 00:01:44.980 our mission today is to unpack that journey. 00:01:45.260 --> 00:01:47.859 How do you go from being a frustrated pre -vet 00:01:47.859 --> 00:01:50.799 student to sculpting Elvis Presley out of Greece 00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:53.280 for a national audience? It's a story of artistic 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:56.500 adaptation and really a story about rural American 00:01:56.500 --> 00:01:58.620 culture. So let's start at the beginning. You 00:01:58.620 --> 00:02:00.519 would assume the butter cow lady was born in 00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:03.359 a barn in Iowa. Right, but she wasn't. She was 00:02:03.359 --> 00:02:05.579 actually born in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1929. 00:02:06.010 --> 00:02:09.629 Exactly. To Benton J. and Elsa Stong. And if 00:02:09.629 --> 00:02:11.669 you look at her family background, you see these 00:02:11.669 --> 00:02:14.430 two very distinct threads that kind of collide 00:02:14.430 --> 00:02:17.650 later on. How do you mean? Well, there's a strong 00:02:17.650 --> 00:02:19.870 thread of high culture. Her grandmother actually 00:02:19.870 --> 00:02:22.150 helped found the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. 00:02:22.469 --> 00:02:24.990 Oh, wow. So classical arts music that structured 00:02:24.990 --> 00:02:28.090 creativity was just part of the family DNA. Exactly. 00:02:28.250 --> 00:02:30.870 But then there's the other thread. Her father 00:02:30.870 --> 00:02:33.789 was a reporter. But her uncle, and this is where 00:02:33.789 --> 00:02:36.969 it gets genuinely fascinating, her uncle was 00:02:36.969 --> 00:02:40.270 Phil Stong. Wait, Phil Stong, the author? Yes. 00:02:40.270 --> 00:02:43.409 He wrote the book. state fair oh my gosh of course 00:02:43.409 --> 00:02:45.550 right and state fair wasn't just a book in the 00:02:45.550 --> 00:02:48.550 1930s it was a massive cultural phenomenon it 00:02:48.550 --> 00:02:50.810 was a movie with will rogers right yes and later 00:02:50.810 --> 00:02:53.629 a rogers and hammerstein musical and the entire 00:02:53.629 --> 00:02:56.169 plot is centered around the romance and the drama 00:02:56.169 --> 00:02:59.189 of the iowa state fair that is just that's an 00:02:59.189 --> 00:03:01.770 incredible coincidence before she even steps 00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:04.770 foot in iowa her family name is basically synonymous 00:03:04.770 --> 00:03:07.199 with the state fair mythology it really is it 00:03:07.199 --> 00:03:09.479 frames her whole childhood the fair wasn't just 00:03:09.479 --> 00:03:12.680 some local event it was literally her family's 00:03:12.680 --> 00:03:15.180 literary legacy like it was destiny or something 00:03:15.180 --> 00:03:18.020 you could say that but growing up she didn't 00:03:18.020 --> 00:03:19.860 want to be a sculptor she didn't want to write 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:23.110 books no she wanted to be a doctor Specifically 00:03:23.110 --> 00:03:25.969 an animal doctor. Right. She headed to Iowa State 00:03:25.969 --> 00:03:29.050 University with a very clear plan to study veterinary 00:03:29.050 --> 00:03:31.830 sciences. And this is where she hits a massive 00:03:31.830 --> 00:03:35.710 roadblock. Yeah. The 1940s reality check. A huge 00:03:35.710 --> 00:03:38.150 brick wall. She applied to the program and they 00:03:38.150 --> 00:03:40.789 just said no. Because of her grades. Not at all. 00:03:40.810 --> 00:03:44.110 Simply because she was a woman. The program did 00:03:44.110 --> 00:03:46.930 not admit women at the time. There was this prevailing 00:03:46.930 --> 00:03:49.930 attitude that large animal medicine was just 00:03:49.930 --> 00:03:53.349 too physically demanding or inappropriate for 00:03:53.349 --> 00:03:55.729 a woman to handle. Which is so frustrating. Imagine 00:03:55.729 --> 00:03:57.969 being that age. You're smart. You've got your 00:03:57.969 --> 00:04:00.669 whole life mapped out. And an institution just 00:04:00.669 --> 00:04:03.770 casually shuts the door in your face based on 00:04:03.770 --> 00:04:05.650 gender. It would have defeated a lot of people. 00:04:05.810 --> 00:04:08.069 But this is where we really see her pragmatism 00:04:08.069 --> 00:04:09.889 shine through. She didn't drop out. She just 00:04:09.889 --> 00:04:12.830 found a side door. She pivoted to animal science 00:04:12.830 --> 00:04:15.990 instead. Exactly. Now, for you listening, animal 00:04:15.990 --> 00:04:17.870 science and veterinary science might sound like 00:04:17.870 --> 00:04:19.930 the same thing. What's the actual difference 00:04:19.930 --> 00:04:22.649 in practice? It's a big difference. Veterinary 00:04:22.649 --> 00:04:26.449 medicine focuses on diagnosis, surgery, healing 00:04:26.449 --> 00:04:29.089 the animal. Animal science is more about the 00:04:29.089 --> 00:04:30.990 agricultural side. Like livestock management. 00:04:31.269 --> 00:04:34.120 Right. Breeding, nutrition, meat production. 00:04:34.519 --> 00:04:37.420 But, and this is the really crucial part, animal 00:04:37.420 --> 00:04:40.160 science requires incredibly rigorous study of 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:43.100 anatomy. Ah, because you have to know how the 00:04:43.100 --> 00:04:45.540 animal is built to judge the quality of the livestock. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:49.060 Precisely. You're studying muscle groups, skeletal 00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:52.300 structures, how fat is distributed. You learn 00:04:52.300 --> 00:04:54.639 the animal from the inside out. I see where this 00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:56.959 is going. If you're going to sculpt a realistic 00:04:56.959 --> 00:04:59.910 600 -pound cow out of butter... later in life 00:04:59.910 --> 00:05:02.189 you need to know exactly where the hip bone sits 00:05:02.189 --> 00:05:04.449 right you need to know how the shoulder muscle 00:05:04.449 --> 00:05:06.990 drapes if she had gone to a traditional art school 00:05:06.990 --> 00:05:09.009 she would have learned composition and theory 00:05:09.009 --> 00:05:11.410 but because she was forced into animal science 00:05:11.410 --> 00:05:15.329 she learned structural reality Exactly. That 00:05:15.329 --> 00:05:18.029 rejection literally gave her the technical foundation 00:05:18.029 --> 00:05:21.370 that made her later sculptures so famous for 00:05:21.370 --> 00:05:24.129 their realism. That is such a great twist. And 00:05:24.129 --> 00:05:25.970 she was also taking formal art classes at the 00:05:25.970 --> 00:05:28.490 university too, right? She was. She studied sculpture 00:05:28.490 --> 00:05:31.050 with Christian Peterson. Who was a pretty major 00:05:31.050 --> 00:05:33.569 artist. Very much so. He was the artist in residence 00:05:33.569 --> 00:05:36.170 at Iowa State. So she's getting this really unique 00:05:36.170 --> 00:05:39.569 dual education. anatomy in the barns by morning, 00:05:39.810 --> 00:05:42.769 clay modeling in the studio by afternoon. That 00:05:42.769 --> 00:05:45.389 establishes her as a completely legitimate artist, 00:05:45.569 --> 00:05:47.670 not just someone messing around with a hobby. 00:05:47.810 --> 00:05:49.910 Exactly. It gave her real credentials. Okay, 00:05:50.009 --> 00:05:54.110 so she graduates, and in 1950, she marries Gaylord 00:05:54.110 --> 00:05:57.329 Lyon. Who went by Joe. Right, Joe Lyon. And they 00:05:57.329 --> 00:05:59.889 move to Toledo, Iowa, to run a dairy farm called 00:05:59.889 --> 00:06:02.589 Lyon Jerseys. And we really need to pause and 00:06:02.589 --> 00:06:05.329 appreciate what running a dairy farm in the 1950s 00:06:05.329 --> 00:06:07.670 entailed. It's not a nine to five job. It is 00:06:07.670 --> 00:06:10.110 grueling. Cows have to be milked twice a day, 00:06:10.230 --> 00:06:12.610 every single day. There are no holidays on a 00:06:12.610 --> 00:06:14.889 dairy farm. It is a massive physical commitment. 00:06:15.050 --> 00:06:18.600 And on top of that, they start a family. a very 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.379 large family they had nine children nine i just 00:06:21.379 --> 00:06:23.959 i cannot fathom the time management right she's 00:06:23.959 --> 00:06:26.519 raising nine kids co -managing a working dairy 00:06:26.519 --> 00:06:29.199 herd and yet she still has this incredible drive 00:06:29.199 --> 00:06:31.879 to create art it speaks to a boundless level 00:06:31.879 --> 00:06:34.779 of energy i honestly struggle to keep up with 00:06:34.779 --> 00:06:37.779 my emails she was a force of nature which brings 00:06:37.779 --> 00:06:41.759 us to 1960 the iowa state fair now it's important 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:44.259 to note she didn't invent the idea of the butter 00:06:44.259 --> 00:06:46.819 cow Right. The sources say the tradition actually 00:06:46.819 --> 00:06:50.000 started way back in 1911. Yes. It had been a 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:53.139 novelty at the fair for decades. But in 1960, 00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:55.600 the previous sculptor couldn't do it or retired, 00:06:55.839 --> 00:06:58.360 and Norma stepped up. And she didn't just step 00:06:58.360 --> 00:07:00.480 in temporarily. She absolutely took ownership 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:02.939 of that role. She was the official sculptor from 00:07:02.939 --> 00:07:05.579 1960 all the way until her retirement in 2006. 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:09.319 46 years. A massive legacy. Let's talk about 00:07:09.319 --> 00:07:12.079 the medium itself. Because people might be imagining... 00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:14.420 you know, carving a stick of butter at the dinner 00:07:14.420 --> 00:07:16.540 table. It is nothing like that. It's industrial 00:07:16.540 --> 00:07:19.579 scale art. It is intensely physical work. First 00:07:19.579 --> 00:07:21.560 of all, you are working inside a display case 00:07:21.560 --> 00:07:24.199 that's kept at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So 00:07:24.199 --> 00:07:26.060 you're in a winter coat while everyone outside 00:07:26.060 --> 00:07:29.220 is sweating in August. Exactly. And butter is 00:07:29.220 --> 00:07:31.839 completely unforgiving. Because it's not clay. 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:34.899 It reacts to body heat. Right. Clay holds its 00:07:34.899 --> 00:07:37.490 shape. But with butter, if your hands are too 00:07:37.490 --> 00:07:40.089 warm, you melt the details. If it's too cold, 00:07:40.129 --> 00:07:42.269 it just flakes off and crumbles. So she had to 00:07:42.269 --> 00:07:44.370 constantly manage the temperature. She would 00:07:44.370 --> 00:07:46.850 have to warm the butter in her hands just enough 00:07:46.850 --> 00:07:49.550 to make it pliable, press it onto the armature. 00:07:49.610 --> 00:07:52.290 The wire frame underneath. Right. And then get 00:07:52.290 --> 00:07:54.430 it cold again immediately so it would lock into 00:07:54.430 --> 00:07:57.250 place. And a standard butter cow is, what, 600 00:07:57.250 --> 00:08:00.509 pounds? Roughly, yes. So she's manipulating hundreds 00:08:00.509 --> 00:08:02.910 of pounds of fat in a freezing room. Incredible. 00:08:03.149 --> 00:08:05.839 And for the first few years? She sticks to the 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:09.180 cows. She's perfecting the jerseys and the Holsteins. 00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:12.139 But then she decides to expand her canvas. I 00:08:12.139 --> 00:08:14.660 think she recognized the power of the platform 00:08:14.660 --> 00:08:17.759 she had. Millions of people walk past that window. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.759 It's prime real estate. It is. So she thought, 00:08:20.860 --> 00:08:23.860 why limit it to livestock? She started incorporating 00:08:23.860 --> 00:08:27.100 pop culture and high art into the cooler. The 00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:29.240 list of things she sculpted is just amazing. 00:08:30.579 --> 00:08:35.480 Garth Brooks. Elvis Presley. John Wayne. The 00:08:35.480 --> 00:08:37.879 Peanuts characters. She even did a Harley Davidson 00:08:37.879 --> 00:08:40.259 motorcycle. That's the one that really blows 00:08:40.259 --> 00:08:43.259 my mind. Because a motorcycle is all rigid lines. 00:08:43.500 --> 00:08:46.740 It's chrome and spokes and mechanics. Doing that 00:08:46.740 --> 00:08:50.039 in a soft, organic medium is incredibly difficult. 00:08:50.220 --> 00:08:52.700 It requires total mastery of the armature underneath. 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.659 And it's just such a funny juxtaposition. A Harley 00:08:55.659 --> 00:08:59.379 is this... symbol of tough, gritty rebellion. 00:08:59.740 --> 00:09:02.460 And she made it out of unsalted cream. Salted, 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:05.059 actually, I think. But yes, the contrast is delightful. 00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:07.299 But she didn't just do pop culture. She also 00:09:07.299 --> 00:09:10.399 tackled high art. She recreated Grant Wood's 00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:12.940 American Gothic. And famously, The Last Supper. 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:14.620 Which brings us back to what we talked about 00:09:14.620 --> 00:09:17.179 at the beginning. Recreating a Renaissance masterpiece 00:09:17.179 --> 00:09:19.820 in a fairground cooler. It's such a bold move. 00:09:19.960 --> 00:09:22.019 It brings that high culture influence from her 00:09:22.019 --> 00:09:24.139 grandmother right into an agricultural setting. 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:26.830 Do you think some people saw it as kitschy? Maybe 00:09:26.830 --> 00:09:29.409 a few art critics did, but she took it entirely 00:09:29.409 --> 00:09:31.990 seriously. She studied da Vinci's composition 00:09:31.990 --> 00:09:34.590 deeply to capture the expressions of the disciples. 00:09:34.970 --> 00:09:37.549 And for a lot of people at the fair who might 00:09:37.549 --> 00:09:40.610 never go to Milan to see the real fresco, this 00:09:40.610 --> 00:09:43.029 was a genuine encounter with that artwork. It 00:09:43.029 --> 00:09:45.350 democratized the art. It made it accessible to 00:09:45.350 --> 00:09:47.509 everyday people. But we also can't forget the 00:09:47.509 --> 00:09:49.940 marketing angle here. Right. Because she was 00:09:49.940 --> 00:09:52.080 a dairy farmer, first and foremost. These sculptures 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:54.360 were brilliant public relations for the dairy 00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:57.360 industry. Because during her career, margarine 00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:00.500 was becoming huge. Dietary trends were shifting 00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:03.899 away from full -fat dairy. Exactly. She was doing 00:10:03.899 --> 00:10:07.580 what we would now call advocacy, advocating for 00:10:07.580 --> 00:10:10.299 agriculture. By making these sculptures viral, 00:10:10.580 --> 00:10:13.279 she was keeping dairy relevant. She made milk 00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:16.320 cool by turning it into John Wayne. It was genius 00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:18.590 marketing. And it brought her a lot of personal 00:10:18.590 --> 00:10:21.070 fame, too. She was not just a local celebrity. 00:10:21.350 --> 00:10:24.950 She went national early on. In 1963, she was 00:10:24.950 --> 00:10:27.330 a guest on The Game Show to tell the truth. That's 00:10:27.330 --> 00:10:29.690 the one where three guests claim to be the same 00:10:29.690 --> 00:10:32.129 person and the celebrity panel has to guess the 00:10:32.129 --> 00:10:34.230 real one. Right. And she actually stumped some 00:10:34.230 --> 00:10:36.730 of them, though Kitty Carlisle and Tom Poston 00:10:36.730 --> 00:10:38.820 eventually figured it out. It just shows that 00:10:38.820 --> 00:10:41.779 the Butter Cow Lady was a title that intrigued 00:10:41.779 --> 00:10:44.759 people coast to coast. And her fame kept growing. 00:10:44.919 --> 00:10:47.740 She literally has a biography written about her 00:10:47.740 --> 00:10:50.940 by Brenda Mikkel in 2002. Called, appropriately, 00:10:51.399 --> 00:10:54.779 The Butter Cow Lady. And she even made it onto 00:10:54.779 --> 00:10:57.360 Late Night with David Letterman. She did, though 00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:00.240 there's a very funny asterisk to that particular 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:02.799 appearance. It's the famous cheese incident? 00:11:03.179 --> 00:11:06.690 Yes. She sculpted a bust of Dave, but she didn't 00:11:06.690 --> 00:11:09.269 use butter. She used cheese. Because of the studio 00:11:09.269 --> 00:11:11.750 lights in New York. Most likely, yes. A butter 00:11:11.750 --> 00:11:14.269 bust under those hot television lights would 00:11:14.269 --> 00:11:16.590 have just melted into a puddle before the interview 00:11:16.590 --> 00:11:19.129 even started. Cheese is much more durable. But 00:11:19.129 --> 00:11:21.690 wait, sculpting cheese has to be completely different 00:11:21.690 --> 00:11:23.830 from sculpting butter. It's the exact opposite 00:11:23.830 --> 00:11:26.750 technique. Butter is an additive process. You 00:11:26.750 --> 00:11:29.190 build it up like clay. Cheese is reductive. You 00:11:29.190 --> 00:11:31.529 have to carve it away like stone or wood. So 00:11:31.529 --> 00:11:33.889 she just casually changed her entire artistic 00:11:33.889 --> 00:11:36.529 technique for a one -off joke on late night. 00:11:36.669 --> 00:11:38.909 It really shows how confident she was as an artist. 00:11:39.480 --> 00:11:41.899 She just rolled with it. And she kept rolling 00:11:41.899 --> 00:11:44.080 with it for 46 years. She didn't retire until 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:47.259 2006. She was 77 years old when she finally stepped 00:11:47.259 --> 00:11:50.159 away. That is a staggering career. Yeah. And 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:52.259 when she passed away in 2011 at the age of 81, 00:11:52.539 --> 00:11:55.299 you read her obituary, and it really emphasizes 00:11:55.299 --> 00:11:59.320 her role as a matriarch. Absolutely. She left 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:01.840 behind her husband, Joe. Their nine children, 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:05.159 23 grandchildren, and five great -grandchildren. 00:12:05.279 --> 00:12:08.080 A literal dynasty. She built an incredible legacy 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:11.279 in her family and equally incredible legacy at 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:14.220 the state fair. She bridged the gap between working 00:12:14.220 --> 00:12:18.000 farm life and pure artistic expression. But, 00:12:18.019 --> 00:12:19.919 you know, there's a thought I can't quite shake 00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:22.000 when we talk about all this. What's that? We 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:25.730 talk about her legacy, but the art itself? It's 00:12:25.730 --> 00:12:29.190 gone. Unlike a marble statue or a bronze cast 00:12:29.190 --> 00:12:32.490 that sits in a museum for centuries, her art 00:12:32.490 --> 00:12:35.029 had an expiration date. What actually happened 00:12:35.029 --> 00:12:36.909 to the butter after the fair? Well, usually the 00:12:36.909 --> 00:12:38.929 butter would be scraped off the wire armature. 00:12:38.990 --> 00:12:41.169 Since it had been handled and sat in a case for 00:12:41.169 --> 00:12:43.370 two weeks, you obviously can't eat it. Sometimes 00:12:43.370 --> 00:12:45.669 they would clarify it, remove the impurities, 00:12:45.730 --> 00:12:48.590 and freeze it to reuse the following year. But 00:12:48.590 --> 00:12:50.769 eventually it all just gets discarded. So her 00:12:50.769 --> 00:12:53.269 version of the Last Supper just got scraped into 00:12:53.269 --> 00:12:56.429 a plastic bucket. Elvis was just melted down. 00:12:56.590 --> 00:12:58.389 Does that bother you? It does. It feels like 00:12:58.389 --> 00:13:01.830 this massive waste of incredible human effort. 00:13:02.029 --> 00:13:03.929 I actually think that's the very thing that makes 00:13:03.929 --> 00:13:07.409 it so profound. Really? How so? It's ephemeral 00:13:07.409 --> 00:13:10.610 art. Think about ice sculptures or sand mandalas. 00:13:10.970 --> 00:13:13.889 The fact that you know it's temporary forces 00:13:13.889 --> 00:13:16.129 you to be present with it. That's a good point. 00:13:16.230 --> 00:13:18.129 If you knew that butter cow was going to sit 00:13:18.129 --> 00:13:20.269 there forever, you might just walk right past 00:13:20.269 --> 00:13:22.210 it. But because you know it's going to be scraped 00:13:22.210 --> 00:13:24.470 into a bucket next week, you actually stop and 00:13:24.470 --> 00:13:26.990 look at it. It creates a sense of urgency for 00:13:26.990 --> 00:13:29.769 the viewer. Exactly. And philosophically, it 00:13:29.769 --> 00:13:32.049 perfectly matches the rhythm of agricultural 00:13:32.049 --> 00:13:34.970 life. Oh, because of the seasons? Right. A harvest 00:13:34.970 --> 00:13:37.169 comes and goes. The state fair comes and goes. 00:13:37.490 --> 00:13:39.970 The art isn't meant to be permanent. It's meant 00:13:39.970 --> 00:13:42.350 to be experienced in the season it was created. 00:13:42.669 --> 00:13:45.960 Wow. That is a deeply philosophical takeaway 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:48.360 from conversation about dairy products. Norma 00:13:48.360 --> 00:13:51.200 Lyon was a complex person. She proved that you 00:13:51.200 --> 00:13:53.259 don't need a gatekeeper's permission to be an 00:13:53.259 --> 00:13:55.539 artist. They told her she couldn't be a vet. 00:13:55.659 --> 00:13:58.419 She was a busy dairy farmer with nine kids. The 00:13:58.419 --> 00:13:59.840 art world probably wouldn't have given her the 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:02.320 time of day. But she didn't care. She turned 00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:05.019 a meat cooler in Iowa into an art gallery that 00:14:05.019 --> 00:14:07.340 millions of people visited. She used what she 00:14:07.340 --> 00:14:09.919 had. If you have paint, you use paint. If you 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:12.549 have 600 pounds of butter, use butter. And if 00:14:12.549 --> 00:14:15.330 you have cheese, you go on David Letterman. Exactly. 00:14:16.049 --> 00:14:17.769 I'm certainly never going to look at a stick 00:14:17.769 --> 00:14:19.690 of butter the same way again. Just don't try 00:14:19.690 --> 00:14:22.490 to sculpt the Peanuts gang at breakfast. It gets 00:14:22.490 --> 00:14:26.169 messy. Good tip. I'll leave it to the professionals. 00:14:27.370 --> 00:14:29.230 Well, for you listening, we hope you enjoyed 00:14:29.230 --> 00:14:31.970 this look into the life of Norma Lyon. It's a 00:14:31.970 --> 00:14:34.860 great reminder that... the barriers people put 00:14:34.860 --> 00:14:37.399 in our way, like being denied entry to vet school, 00:14:37.539 --> 00:14:40.059 might just push us toward a much more interesting 00:14:40.059 --> 00:14:42.620 legacy. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us on 00:14:42.620 --> 00:14:44.220 this deep dive. We'll catch you next time.