Look, Ma, No Wires

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dairy queen: Talia Sloboda poses as Jim Victor works on his creation.

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April 11-17, 2002

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Look, Ma, No Wires

dairy queen: Talia Sloboda poses as Jim Victor works on his creation.

Local artist Jim Victor gets his big break -- with butter.

by Trish Boppert

Until last week, Talia Sloboda, a curvaceous 19-year-old model from Toms River, N.J., had never posed for a sculptor. Sure, she’d won the Miss Hawaiian Tropic contest in Atlantic City last year, and she’s picked up some catalog work for Boscov’s, but the scene that unfolded in the cool, dark sanctuary space of the Fleisher Art Memorial last Friday was something else again.

The atmosphere was almost gynecological. The bikini-clad model was lying on a sheet-swathed table, surrounded by bright lights, while a man in a white smock and surgical gloves hovered near, instrument in hand. Except he wasn't a doctor, the instrument was made of wood and the lights came courtesy of the Ripley's Believe It or Not crew filming a TV segment.

If the medium is the message, then this life-sized sculpture of Sloboda's reclining body was a richly glistening valentine to the dairy industry from which it sprang. Created entirely from some 200 pounds of butter, the work was just the latest in artist Jim Victor's line of artfully crafted food-based creations.

He and his meticulously sculpted works of art have been pleasing crowds at state fairs and other venues for years. He's sculpted animals, people and objects in butter, chocolate and cheese. ("I occasionally nibble on the cheese and chocolate," he confessed, "but not the butter.")

Working from 55-pound boxes of butter, provided by sponsor Land o' Lakes, Victor worked with a variety of tools to press and smooth the butter into shape. He said that Kraft, the dairy cooperative Agri-Mark and its dairy brand Cabot have sponsored other works.

An instructor at both Fleisher and Rosemont College, Victor has exhibited his work at many of the major art institutions in Philadelphia. Introducing himself, he emerged from behind the human-shaped mound of butter before him to remove his gloves and shake hands. "I wear the gloves to add to my grip and decrease the heat applied to the butter," he explained.

Victor said that 55 degrees is the ideal temperature for working with butter. "I usually work in a refrigerated room," he said, "but the model wouldn't be able to stand that."

He got into food-based sculpture about seven years ago, when a former student asked if he could make chocolate busts of Ann-Margret and Mickey Rooney to commemorate the 1,000th performance of the Broadway play Sugar Babies. Today, said Victor, "the bulk of my income comes from food sculptures."

According to Keith Greenberg, field director for the show, the Believe It or Not element of this particular butter sculpture was "the wires," or lack thereof. "We all know how quickly butter melts, and to sculpt a figure like this and not have any hidden wires supporting it is pretty amazing," Greenberg said.

According to Dan Carp, director of photography for the shoot, this was certainly as believable as other Ripley's shoots he's participated in. Though he refused to rate the Fleisher's buttery brouhaha on a scale of believability when compared to others he's shot, Carp said, "It's more believable than Isaac the Calculating Dog."

Victor had spent the day before the Ripley's crew arrived working with Sloboda (who was accompanied by her mother, Heidi) to create an incomplete yet astonishingly detailed and lifelike replica of his model in less than 12 hours. "She," as Victor, Sloboda and her mother called the sculpture, was stored in a specially designed, creepily morgue-like cooler.

"I don't know what I think about when he's sculpting me," said Sloboda, "but I guess it's probably butter."

Victor created a mock model of the sculpture in its beginning phases for use while filming. "I used old butter for this one," he said, accommodating the crew's requests to work on various aspects of the dummy sculpture to establish a sense of its creation.

"That butter smells pretty funky, doesn't it?" Sloboda asked her mother as the mock sculpture was carried off camera.

Sloboda broke her pose to don a shiny black robe and high heels. "Can you get me a coffee, Ma?" she asked.

"Sometimes I couldn't help but smile," Sloboda said about watching her image surface from a mound of butter. "First, I would see my legs emerge, and then my butt."

"This might be the most unusual place where I've sculpted in butter," said Victor, gesturing to the medieval sculptures adorning the church sanctuary in which he worked. Illuminated from above by the glowing panels of a stained-glass rose window, the space, said Victor, was once a consecrated Episcopal church, and the statuary purchased from "the guy who started the Cloisters in New York."

Victor reported that butter sculpture also has a long tradition. "Buddhist monks have been sculpting in butter for centuries," he said. While there are no plans to exhibit the completed sculpture, the Ripley's segment is in the lineup for airing later this television season.

"This whole thing is consistent with our sense of supporting artists," said Thora Jacobson, executive director of the Fleisher Art Memorial. "Jim is a longtime member of our faculty, and this is the way he really makes his living. If visibility for Jim making butter sculpture means that he can Œcarve' out some time to make the work he really loves, then I couldn't be more pleased."




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