Olenka Kleban and Tim Manalo may have the coolest job at the Canadian National Exhibition.

While fairgoers broiled in the midday heat yesterday, the pair of OCAD students were shut up in a walk-in cooler, sculpting blocks of butter into works of art.

They spend about seven hours a day inside the box, which is chilled to about 10C, emerging occasionally for breaks, while spectators watch them through a glass wall.

This year, the Ex's butter sculptures must follow an outer space theme. Kleban, 22, opted to create a statue of a sitting Yoda. Manalo, 21, went for a riff on American Gothic, with aliens subbing for the farmers.

"It was kind of an easy theme," he said. "The farm and aliens – they've always been related in popular culture."

The pair compared the unusual medium to clay.

"It's similar, but it has its own qualities," Kleban said.

For one, it responds to heat.

"The more you handle it, the more it melts, which can be a good thing and a bad thing," Manalo said. "When it's harder, it's tougher to work with."

Manalo originally tried to sculpt from a large block of butter, but it proved so hard, it broke his tools. Instead, he opted to build the sculpture up, one slab at a time. Using his hands, he formed the substance into the busts.

For her part, Kleban made a rough framework out of foam, then started laying sheets of butter overtop. By noon yesterday, the shape of the sculpture was finished and she was putting the finishing touches on, carefully putting wrinkles in the statue's face.

Manalo was on his second day of working on the sculpture, Kleban on her sixth. Today, their pieces finished, they will be replaced by two new sculptors. There are 10 in total.

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Neither seemed bothered by the cold, though they admitted it was a little strange being watched.

"There's this weird voyeurism," Kleban said, noting that watchers sometimes didn't seem to realize the artists were working behind soundproof glass. "People will try to communicate with you."