I want you to picture a very specific kind of
chaos. Okay, lay it on me. So it's mid -August.
You're in the American Midwest. Oh, so it is
hot. It's like 90 degrees, 90 % humidity. It's
just brutal. Right. And you are surrounded by
the smell of corn dogs, diesel fumes from tractors,
and, you know, maybe just a little bit of livestock
manure. You're painting a very vivid picture
of the Iowa State Fair right now. Exactly. It's
sensory overload. Yeah. It's loud and sticky.
But then you step into this specific building,
right? And you look through a glass window into
a refrigerated case. Which has to feel amazing
in that heat. It was 40 degrees inside there.
And it's quiet. But staring back at you, bathed
in this kind of weird fluorescent light, is a
perfect two -scale recreation of The Last Supper.
Da Vinci's Last Supper? Yes. But it's not paint.
It's not clay. It is sculpted entirely out of
salted butter. Which is just, it's such a wild
concept. It is. And today for our deep dives,
we are looking at the woman who made that image
possible. We are talking about Norma Duffield's
Dong Lion. Better known to most people as the
Butter Cow Lady. The Butter Cow Lady. And I know
you hear that title and you think... You think
it's a novelty act. Exactly. Like something you'd
see on a weird travel vlog. But... We've got
all these notes here from her Wikipedia page,
her biographical records, and her life story
is it's really something else. It's surprisingly
complex because when you actually dig into the
source material, it's a story about a woman who
was flat out rejected from the scientific career
she wanted. Yeah. And she somehow managed to
pivot and turn this incredibly perishable dairy
product into. A legitimate artistic medium. So
our mission today is to unpack that journey.
How do you go from being a frustrated pre -vet
student to sculpting Elvis Presley out of Greece
for a national audience? It's a story of artistic
adaptation and really a story about rural American
culture. So let's start at the beginning. You
would assume the butter cow lady was born in
a barn in Iowa. Right, but she wasn't. She was
actually born in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1929.
Exactly. To Benton J. and Elsa Stong. And if
you look at her family background, you see these
two very distinct threads that kind of collide
later on. How do you mean? Well, there's a strong
thread of high culture. Her grandmother actually
helped found the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.
Oh, wow. So classical arts music that structured
creativity was just part of the family DNA. Exactly.
But then there's the other thread. Her father
was a reporter. But her uncle, and this is where
it gets genuinely fascinating, her uncle was
Phil Stong. Wait, Phil Stong, the author? Yes.
He wrote the book. state fair oh my gosh of course
right and state fair wasn't just a book in the
1930s it was a massive cultural phenomenon it
was a movie with will rogers right yes and later
a rogers and hammerstein musical and the entire
plot is centered around the romance and the drama
of the iowa state fair that is just that's an
incredible coincidence before she even steps
foot in iowa her family name is basically synonymous
with the state fair mythology it really is it
frames her whole childhood the fair wasn't just
some local event it was literally her family's
literary legacy like it was destiny or something
you could say that but growing up she didn't
want to be a sculptor she didn't want to write
books no she wanted to be a doctor Specifically
an animal doctor. Right. She headed to Iowa State
University with a very clear plan to study veterinary
sciences. And this is where she hits a massive
roadblock. Yeah. The 1940s reality check. A huge
brick wall. She applied to the program and they
just said no. Because of her grades. Not at all.
Simply because she was a woman. The program did
not admit women at the time. There was this prevailing
attitude that large animal medicine was just
too physically demanding or inappropriate for
a woman to handle. Which is so frustrating. Imagine
being that age. You're smart. You've got your
whole life mapped out. And an institution just
casually shuts the door in your face based on
gender. It would have defeated a lot of people.
But this is where we really see her pragmatism
shine through. She didn't drop out. She just
found a side door. She pivoted to animal science
instead. Exactly. Now, for you listening, animal
science and veterinary science might sound like
the same thing. What's the actual difference
in practice? It's a big difference. Veterinary
medicine focuses on diagnosis, surgery, healing
the animal. Animal science is more about the
agricultural side. Like livestock management.
Right. Breeding, nutrition, meat production.
But, and this is the really crucial part, animal
science requires incredibly rigorous study of
anatomy. Ah, because you have to know how the
animal is built to judge the quality of the livestock.
Precisely. You're studying muscle groups, skeletal
structures, how fat is distributed. You learn
the animal from the inside out. I see where this
is going. If you're going to sculpt a realistic
600 -pound cow out of butter... later in life
you need to know exactly where the hip bone sits
right you need to know how the shoulder muscle
drapes if she had gone to a traditional art school
she would have learned composition and theory
but because she was forced into animal science
she learned structural reality Exactly. That
rejection literally gave her the technical foundation
that made her later sculptures so famous for
their realism. That is such a great twist. And
she was also taking formal art classes at the
university too, right? She was. She studied sculpture
with Christian Peterson. Who was a pretty major
artist. Very much so. He was the artist in residence
at Iowa State. So she's getting this really unique
dual education. anatomy in the barns by morning,
clay modeling in the studio by afternoon. That
establishes her as a completely legitimate artist,
not just someone messing around with a hobby.
Exactly. It gave her real credentials. Okay,
so she graduates, and in 1950, she marries Gaylord
Lyon. Who went by Joe. Right, Joe Lyon. And they
move to Toledo, Iowa, to run a dairy farm called
Lyon Jerseys. And we really need to pause and
appreciate what running a dairy farm in the 1950s
entailed. It's not a nine to five job. It is
grueling. Cows have to be milked twice a day,
every single day. There are no holidays on a
dairy farm. It is a massive physical commitment.
And on top of that, they start a family. a very
large family they had nine children nine i just
i cannot fathom the time management right she's
raising nine kids co -managing a working dairy
herd and yet she still has this incredible drive
to create art it speaks to a boundless level
of energy i honestly struggle to keep up with
my emails she was a force of nature which brings
us to 1960 the iowa state fair now it's important
to note she didn't invent the idea of the butter
cow Right. The sources say the tradition actually
started way back in 1911. Yes. It had been a
novelty at the fair for decades. But in 1960,
the previous sculptor couldn't do it or retired,
and Norma stepped up. And she didn't just step
in temporarily. She absolutely took ownership
of that role. She was the official sculptor from
1960 all the way until her retirement in 2006.
46 years. A massive legacy. Let's talk about
the medium itself. Because people might be imagining...
you know, carving a stick of butter at the dinner
table. It is nothing like that. It's industrial
scale art. It is intensely physical work. First
of all, you are working inside a display case
that's kept at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So
you're in a winter coat while everyone outside
is sweating in August. Exactly. And butter is
completely unforgiving. Because it's not clay.
It reacts to body heat. Right. Clay holds its
shape. But with butter, if your hands are too
warm, you melt the details. If it's too cold,
it just flakes off and crumbles. So she had to
constantly manage the temperature. She would
have to warm the butter in her hands just enough
to make it pliable, press it onto the armature.
The wire frame underneath. Right. And then get
it cold again immediately so it would lock into
place. And a standard butter cow is, what, 600
pounds? Roughly, yes. So she's manipulating hundreds
of pounds of fat in a freezing room. Incredible.
And for the first few years? She sticks to the
cows. She's perfecting the jerseys and the Holsteins.
But then she decides to expand her canvas. I
think she recognized the power of the platform
she had. Millions of people walk past that window.
It's prime real estate. It is. So she thought,
why limit it to livestock? She started incorporating
pop culture and high art into the cooler. The
list of things she sculpted is just amazing.
Garth Brooks. Elvis Presley. John Wayne. The
Peanuts characters. She even did a Harley Davidson
motorcycle. That's the one that really blows
my mind. Because a motorcycle is all rigid lines.
It's chrome and spokes and mechanics. Doing that
in a soft, organic medium is incredibly difficult.
It requires total mastery of the armature underneath.
And it's just such a funny juxtaposition. A Harley
is this... symbol of tough, gritty rebellion.
And she made it out of unsalted cream. Salted,
actually, I think. But yes, the contrast is delightful.
But she didn't just do pop culture. She also
tackled high art. She recreated Grant Wood's
American Gothic. And famously, The Last Supper.
Which brings us back to what we talked about
at the beginning. Recreating a Renaissance masterpiece
in a fairground cooler. It's such a bold move.
It brings that high culture influence from her
grandmother right into an agricultural setting.
Do you think some people saw it as kitschy? Maybe
a few art critics did, but she took it entirely
seriously. She studied da Vinci's composition
deeply to capture the expressions of the disciples.
And for a lot of people at the fair who might
never go to Milan to see the real fresco, this
was a genuine encounter with that artwork. It
democratized the art. It made it accessible to
everyday people. But we also can't forget the
marketing angle here. Right. Because she was
a dairy farmer, first and foremost. These sculptures
were brilliant public relations for the dairy
industry. Because during her career, margarine
was becoming huge. Dietary trends were shifting
away from full -fat dairy. Exactly. She was doing
what we would now call advocacy, advocating for
agriculture. By making these sculptures viral,
she was keeping dairy relevant. She made milk
cool by turning it into John Wayne. It was genius
marketing. And it brought her a lot of personal
fame, too. She was not just a local celebrity.
She went national early on. In 1963, she was
a guest on The Game Show to tell the truth. That's
the one where three guests claim to be the same
person and the celebrity panel has to guess the
real one. Right. And she actually stumped some
of them, though Kitty Carlisle and Tom Poston
eventually figured it out. It just shows that
the Butter Cow Lady was a title that intrigued
people coast to coast. And her fame kept growing.
She literally has a biography written about her
by Brenda Mikkel in 2002. Called, appropriately,
The Butter Cow Lady. And she even made it onto
Late Night with David Letterman. She did, though
there's a very funny asterisk to that particular
appearance. It's the famous cheese incident?
Yes. She sculpted a bust of Dave, but she didn't
use butter. She used cheese. Because of the studio
lights in New York. Most likely, yes. A butter
bust under those hot television lights would
have just melted into a puddle before the interview
even started. Cheese is much more durable. But
wait, sculpting cheese has to be completely different
from sculpting butter. It's the exact opposite
technique. Butter is an additive process. You
build it up like clay. Cheese is reductive. You
have to carve it away like stone or wood. So
she just casually changed her entire artistic
technique for a one -off joke on late night.
It really shows how confident she was as an artist.
She just rolled with it. And she kept rolling
with it for 46 years. She didn't retire until
2006. She was 77 years old when she finally stepped
away. That is a staggering career. Yeah. And
when she passed away in 2011 at the age of 81,
you read her obituary, and it really emphasizes
her role as a matriarch. Absolutely. She left
behind her husband, Joe. Their nine children,
23 grandchildren, and five great -grandchildren.
A literal dynasty. She built an incredible legacy
in her family and equally incredible legacy at
the state fair. She bridged the gap between working
farm life and pure artistic expression. But,
you know, there's a thought I can't quite shake
when we talk about all this. What's that? We
talk about her legacy, but the art itself? It's
gone. Unlike a marble statue or a bronze cast
that sits in a museum for centuries, her art
had an expiration date. What actually happened
to the butter after the fair? Well, usually the
butter would be scraped off the wire armature.
Since it had been handled and sat in a case for
two weeks, you obviously can't eat it. Sometimes
they would clarify it, remove the impurities,
and freeze it to reuse the following year. But
eventually it all just gets discarded. So her
version of the Last Supper just got scraped into
a plastic bucket. Elvis was just melted down.
Does that bother you? It does. It feels like
this massive waste of incredible human effort.
I actually think that's the very thing that makes
it so profound. Really? How so? It's ephemeral
art. Think about ice sculptures or sand mandalas.
The fact that you know it's temporary forces
you to be present with it. That's a good point.
If you knew that butter cow was going to sit
there forever, you might just walk right past
it. But because you know it's going to be scraped
into a bucket next week, you actually stop and
look at it. It creates a sense of urgency for
the viewer. Exactly. And philosophically, it
perfectly matches the rhythm of agricultural
life. Oh, because of the seasons? Right. A harvest
comes and goes. The state fair comes and goes.
The art isn't meant to be permanent. It's meant
to be experienced in the season it was created.
Wow. That is a deeply philosophical takeaway
from conversation about dairy products. Norma
Lyon was a complex person. She proved that you
don't need a gatekeeper's permission to be an
artist. They told her she couldn't be a vet.
She was a busy dairy farmer with nine kids. The
art world probably wouldn't have given her the
time of day. But she didn't care. She turned
a meat cooler in Iowa into an art gallery that
millions of people visited. She used what she
had. If you have paint, you use paint. If you
have 600 pounds of butter, use butter. And if
you have cheese, you go on David Letterman. Exactly.
I'm certainly never going to look at a stick
of butter the same way again. Just don't try
to sculpt the Peanuts gang at breakfast. It gets
messy. Good tip. I'll leave it to the professionals.
Well, for you listening, we hope you enjoyed
this look into the life of Norma Lyon. It's a
great reminder that... the barriers people put
in our way, like being denied entry to vet school,
might just push us toward a much more interesting
legacy. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us on
this deep dive. We'll catch you next time.