Celebrate Patty the cheeseburger's 15th birthday this Saturday

By Mia Holmes

FOR THE past fifteen years, local artist Rubi McGrory has put her twist on creativity.

In 2008, while working on a project for her MFA, she purchased a McDonald’s cheeseburger, Patty, and has kept it in her possession ever since.

Before purchasing Patty, McGrory had other cheeseburgers that she worked on, but they got thrown out. She decided to get another cheeseburger and that she would not let it be thrown away. To commemorate the date, McGrory glued on the date with rhinestones: July 29, 2008.

McGrory has kept Patty for as long as she has because why wouldn’t she? She says that she had no preconceptions about what would happen with Patty and that it’s a fun game to have her cheeseburger.

“I was stitching and sewing anything I could get my hands on. I did some leaves in front of my house. I sewed lemons, beef jerky, and saltines. I decided that a McDonald's cheeseburger seemed like the next logical step. I worked there in high school and college,” McGrory says.

She says that stitching onto the burger proved to be a little difficult as she was unable to glue the rhinestones on initially. She purchased Swarovski crystal rhinestones from rhinestoneguy.com, and Patty was bedazzled in fifteen minutes.

“I think like a month or two after I did it, I went to a farmers market at the old trustees building on East Broad. I brought Patty and sat there like, hey people, this is what a couple of months old McDonald's cheeseburger looks like. For a long time, it lived in a cardboard granola bar box and either in a cupboard or in my wine rack,” she say.

McGrory keeps Patty for the art side of things: she says that McDonald’s is recognizable and everyone understands a cheeseburger from there. McGrory’s message by keeping Patty is to embrace all ridiculousness and shenanigans.

Patty the burger and Pammy the Twinkie.

To celebrate Patty’s first two birthdays, McGrory took pictures. Around that time she said that she worked from home and away from Savannah; she hasn’t been in town for most of Patty’s birthdays.

“For her tenth birthday, Peter Roberts and I conjured a party at Location Gallery and there was a group show and local artists who did their interpretation of fast food. Also, Pat Longstreth, who is a local filmmaker, did a small film on Patty for her birthday. We had a little party for her at McDonald's with balloons and cake. My friend Heather Szatmary, who is a SCAD professor, went to a yoga class with Patty and me. We did all these things around town and took pictures of Patty and I turned it into a video at the end of the day,” McGrory says.

Since Patty’s fifteenth birthday is coming up, McGrory wanted to do a quinceañera, but she didn’t want to offend anyone who celebrated the holiday. Instead, she decided to have a regular party. McGrory reached out to White Whale, a bar located on Bull Street, who is excited about the idea of doing a birthday party for a cheeseburger.

McGrory says that Patty has desiccated and dried up, and has gotten chunked up slightly due to being carried around in McGrory’s bag. Patty has never been refrigerated: she lives in a Happy Meal box on her bookshelf in her kitchen.

“I didn't realize or think about the fact that ten to fifteen years down the line, I would still have her. I would just put her in my bag and carry her around. Little chunks are missing from the bottom right. But other than that, she's in good shape. There's a kind of a weird smell of old cooking grease. But other than that, nothing. And in that time, you know, we live in the South, there are bugs and critters everywhere. Nothing has been interested in the consumption of Patty the cheeseburger,” she says.

In addition to Patty, McGrory also has a Twinkie, Pammy, whose 15th birthday will be on August 1, just a few days after Patty’s.

Patty's 15th birthday party will be Saturday, July 29 at 6 p.m. at White Whale Craft Ales, 1207 Bull Street.