TULSA -- Hundreds of people at the Tulsa State Fair are stopping to watch Sarah Pratt carve a tilt-a-whirl out of butter.
This is Pratt and her husband's first time at the fair in Tulsa. Originally from Des Moines, she is one of about six butter sculptors in the country.
Starting this past Thursday, she and her husband have been spending between 10 to 14 hours inside a 42-degree refrigerator in the River Spirit Expo Center.
Pratt said they started brainstorming a plan for this year's sculpture in the spring. She wanted to incorporate this year's "Take a spin" theme. She came up with the tilt-a-whirl. Pratt said it is her favorite ride, plus they have one at the Tulsa State Fair.
She and her husband started building the frame about three weeks ago. The sculpture has a tilt-a-whirl car with two passengers inside.
"We are finding that this is really pretty hard, because the way the people are sitting inside the tilt-a-whirl makes for really tight angles so we are having to reach our arm in to get the back cushion," Pratt said, showing the butter on her sweatshirt sleeve.
Crowds have gathered in amazement. One person asked if she got the butter from the grocery store.
Pratt laughed and said she was given 13 bags with a 55-pound block inside of each one.
"We are not unwrapping sticks of butter thankfully," Pratt said.
She and her husband started working on the details on Friday. They were carving a picture of Dizzy, the fair's mascot, into the side of the car.
"Sculpting the butter is a lot like clay," Pratt explained. "We're cutting the butter away, but we are also adding it back on, so it's a forgiving process in the sense that it may be frustrating in the moment but then we just add the butter back on."
Fair-goers were stopping to have their picture taken in front of the butter. Others were wondering how she is doing it.
"It's amazing how you can get the butter to stand up like that," one fair-goer said.
"That's a lot butter and it looks cold in there," another said.
Pratt and her husband are hard at work inside but love when the crowds stop by to watch them work.
"This is the first one we've been to that has benches for people to really sit back and watch for a long time and we love it," Pratt said. "My husband is kind of a goof ball. He likes to throw butter at the windows so if a kid gets their nose up to the windows and they're looking real serious, he just goes boink and wakes them up and makes them laugh."
Pratt will be inside the River Spirit Expo Center sculpting until Tuesday. That is when she plans to have the masterpiece finished.
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