VIDEO: Indiana Dairy Turns Cheese into Art at Indiana State Fair

Turning cheese into art! That was the goal of Sarah “The Cheese Lady” Kaufmann and Nancy Baker as they took 1,400 pounds of cheese from Pace Dairy in Crawfordsville and turned it into the 2024 Giant Cheese Sculpture—Presented by American Dairy Association Indiana at the Indiana State Fairgrounds & Event Center!

Taking their cue from this year’s fair theme (The Art & Nature of Fun, presented by Newfields), Sarah and Nancy created their sculpture as a special tribute to two classic pieces of art – American Gothic and the Mona Lisa – while incorporating a fun dairy twist to the sculpture. Indiana Dairy’s popular mascot Buttercup is also depicted in the sculpture.

The cheese sculpture is on display in the brand new cooler located in the Ag/Hort Building. At the fair’s conclusion, the cheese joins other biological matter from the event destined for a North Central Indiana digester, where it will be churned & turned into “green energy.”

The sculpture is sponsored for the 18th consecutive year by American Dairy Association Indiana, the statewide organization that represents Indiana’s nearly 700 dairy farm families.

CLICK ABOVE to see the cheese sculpture and hear from Kaufmann as she and Baker spent more than 250 hours creating this one-of-a-kind artwork that you can see on display now at the Ag/Hort Building through the remainder of the 2024 Indiana State Fair!