Marla Brotherton already was well known for
her specialty chocolates when she and her husband, Greg, opened In
Good Taste, their candy shop in Taylorville. But the couple’s
creations never included anything as unusual as the
Brothertons’ recent tribute to Abraham Lincoln, a life-size
chocolate bust of our nation’s 16th president.
The idea came in mid-March, when the
Brothertons were approached by Carol Alexander, president of the
Taylorville Tourism Council. “She asked if we would be
interested in doing a large chocolate Lincoln,” Marla
Brotherton recounts.
Alexander wanted the chocolate Lincoln as part
of Taylorville’s Folk Art Lincoln Exhibit at this
week’s pre-dedication events for the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Museum. Springfield’s small neighbor to the
southeast was picked to create 24 lookalike folk-art creations for
the museum festivities.
The Brothertons had never made a chocolate
creation of this size, and Marla wasn’t sure that she was up
to the task. But Greg, who is also Taylorville’s chief of
police, was undaunted, she says. “He is real positive and
pretty creative,” she says.
The original plan was for Greg to make a
silicone mold. “We had to find a statue,” Marla says.
“He found one of Lincoln, but time was a factor, so I called
Carol and asked if she knew where a statue [along with the mold]
was that we could use. A couple days later, she had acquired a plastic mold of Lincoln created by John
McClarey.”
McClarey, a well-known Lincoln sculptor, is
creating a life-size statue of Lincoln for the city of Taylorville.
This statue, along with a statue of a scampering pig donated by the
Monte Siegrist family, will be unveiled next month on the
Taylorville square. Alexander contacted the sculptor and secured a
mold — and McClarey’s permission — for the
Brothertons’ use.
With just weeks to complete the chocolate
Lincoln, the first thing the Brothertons had to do was plug the
openings in the flexible mold. At first, Marla says,
“Lincoln’s head was leaking! We had to try several
times to secure the breaks.”
Marla says they had never used a mold such as
this one for chocolate and had never made a creation this large.
The first endeavor, incorporating 35 pounds of chocolate, resulted
in a chocolate Lincoln with gray highlights. “We
couldn’t use him, so Greg broke it apart, I re-melted the
chocolate, and we tried again. The second one didn’t look so
good, either.”
The third try was more successful, with just a
couple of streaks in the chocolate that Marla was able to disguise
by painting over them with a chocolate wash. The regal 18-inch bust
was completed. Alexander picked it up last week and delivered the
bust, along with the 23 other folk-art creations for the exhibit.
Marla also worked all week to create Lincoln images to use as giveaways at the
exhibit as well.
Response to the Taylorville Lincoln Folk Art
Exhibit has been positive, Alexander says. Over the weekend, the
display received visitors from Ukraine, Korea, Alaska, and
California. “Our guests enjoyed chocolate images of Lincoln
made by Marla,” Alexander says. “A troop of Boy Scouts
from suburban Chicago voted the chocolates their favorite folk
art.”
When asked whether they would do it again,
Greg takes a deep breath: “Yeah. Now that it’s done, it
was fun.”
So what happens to the chocolate Lincoln bust?
Marla says some mention has been made of
eating it, but she nixes that notion. Instead, chocolate Lincoln
will come back to the Brothertons’ shop, where it will go on
display.
The bust might even become a tourist
attraction in its own right, Marla says with a laugh: “Who
knows? It might be a draw like the [state fair’s] butter
cow!”
In Good Taste, located on the square in
Taylorville, is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.
For more information, call 217-287-1130 or visit www.igtaste.com.
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2005.
