ART

Don’t Try This on a Hot Day Dept.: Ten Tibetan monks are involved in a monthlong project at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City that dates back six centuries--butter sculpture. The figures taking shape in an unheated hall are intricate, brightly colored religious offerings, created in a ritualistic manner. The monks, from the Gyuto Tantric Monastery in Bomdila, India, rise before dawn to chant for hours, then work on the sculptures from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The individual pie-sized pieces of art are abstract flowers, concentric designs and other symbols, as well as miniature sculptures of horses, elephants and six-armed figures. The “butter” is actually a vegetable product refined from the seeds of a certain species of tree that grows in northern India.