Pa. German Butter Mold c. 1938

Editor: So, this is a print called "Pa. German Butter Mold" from around 1938. It depicts a wooden butter mold, likely printed from wood as well. It strikes me how such a utilitarian object can be elevated to a form of art. What do you make of this, given your expertise? Curator: The critical lens here is not about elevating or transforming a "utilitarian object." I am more curious about understanding the material conditions that produce meaning. We should examine the historical relationship between butter making as a practice and the socioeconomic role it occupied within rural Pennsylvania German communities. Do you know where the original butter mold was sourced from? Editor: I don’t, but it looks handmade to me. Almost folk-arty with the stars and… is that an eagle? Curator: Precisely. Now consider how the act of imprinting butter, a staple, with symbols connects daily sustenance with broader cultural narratives around the nation and folk identity. The carving, a physical process of marking, becomes the medium of these cultural transmission. Also note, how printmaking democratizes and multiplies the mold and spreads knowledge to an eager audience. How would consumption figure into this? Editor: I guess by repeatedly impressing these designs into butter, we internalize those images every time we use the butter…like, we *consume* national pride with our daily bread. Curator: You are moving towards the core understanding: not just seeing the image but digesting the ideology. Further exploration could look into similar forms within different immigrant populations of the period. Does anything surprise you about it? Editor: It's surprisingly effective! I expected something crude, but it's complex, even elegant. It also reveals a whole dimension of folk art production I had never really considered before, how tied it is to everyday things, but more than that, the hands that carve those images into being, every time that print is run. Thank you. Curator: My pleasure. Remember, every object embodies material relations, from labor to the market, through which it exists.