Leftbank, in its many manifestations, has had a diverse and iconic history. While moments in time like the jazz bar, or the incubator for the Portland City Club stand out, some of the building’s lesser known usages are just as interesting and reflect on a culture which has slipped from public consciousness. One part of the structure, the Hazelwood building was a multi-floored with an ice-cream parlor/restaurant on the ground floor, confections and desserts made up above and milk and dairy deliveries going out the back door. In the mid twenties, pastry making and baking were not the mechanized processes we see today, but a true craft and the chefs employed were artists skilled at regional and European traditions.
In fact, the Hazelwood Creamery was famous for its butter carvings. These were not today’s diminutive butter cream roses adorning the top of cakes, or a bizarre centerpiece for banquets, but 900 lb. behemoths- larger than life dioramas of local culture and statues of prominent figures. While using butter as a sculpting medium might sound odd to us now, it was at one time a craft movement with particular bragging rights. Its size and expense demonstrated a significant financial commitment on the part of the patron. A pastry chef had to work quickly in conditions where cool temperatures were hard to regulate and the final piece was a temporary display which quickly reduced to a greasy mess. By creating these enormous pieces, the Hazelwood was declaring their prominence in the community, our butter is the medium of master craftsmen, and we’ve a heck of lot of it.
With the prices of milk and butter today, it’s difficult to imagine that the tradition has continued, but at farm shows across the Midwest, and dairy states, a handful of sculptors still ply the craft. One artist, Jim Victor, is famous for creating scenes with life sized cows, and train cars, but is also know to work in cheese, chocolate, meats and has created bust of Fidel Castro done in vegetables. With the changing times the chefs have brought pop culture humor to the scenes with prominent figures of Darth Vader and Yoda.
It would be exceptionally odd to see a local revival in this particular craft, but this is Portland, and stranger things have happened. Leftbank is going to be filled with tenants and visitors soon. Crafts people and entrepreneurs will walk the halls again. The inevitable conversation of, “if these walls could talk” will come up, and perhaps this strange specter from the past can serve as inspiration. Maybe not in butter, but to build something, large, perhaps transitory which showcases an arcane talent in an unexpected commodity.
