Around this period, it appears that Brooks and her husband had separated. (Samuel, who chose to stay in Arkansas, won an election as a state legislator in 1882.) She opened a Washington, D.C. studio and in 1878 sculpted a life-size version of "Dreaming Iolanthe" in butter, and shipped it to be exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. She found it amusing that customs officials had listed her sculpture not as a work of art, but as "110 lbs. of butter".