Butter Star Trek Bridge Scene; Photo courtesy of Diana Van Donselaar

Butter Enterprise; Photo courtesy of Diana Van Donselaar

Visitors to the Iowa State Fair this year were treated to another new butter sculpture, this time with roots in Riverside. Butter artist Sarah Pratt had the idea of doing Star Trek butter sculptures in honor of the show’s 50th anniversary, and given its ties to Riverside as the future birthplace of Captain James Kirk, the fair committee agreed. Pratt and her family visited the city where the famous captain will one day be born, and were given a lot of inspiration from what they saw. She said she was unaware of what a “tribble” was, but after seeing them in the museum gift shop and watching the appropriate episode, decided to include them while also getting her kids involved. In the show, tribbles are small, round, furry creatures that multiply rapidly. Each day her children would sculpt new tribbles to add to the existing display, and Pratt said they had a lot of fun with the project.

Pratt said the total time it took to sculpt all of the Star Trek creations was around 216 hours for her and her assistants, and that doesn’t include the research time. She said the hardest person to get just right was Kirk, as she struggled to truly capture his essence. In the end, she said people were complimentary of the sculptures, and she was pleased with how they turned out. Her main assistant was her father, who grew up watching Star Trek and passed the love onto her, which she has now passed to her own children. For more on the Star Trek butter sculptures, listen to the In Touch with Southeast Iowa interview with Sarah Pratt.