Guri Venstad

Connecting the cheese

Wonderful things have happened since the word about The Cheese Map came out. I’ve gotten in touch with cheese enthusiasts from all over the world, and already learned a lot more about strange and exotic cheeses I hadn’t heard of before. Doing a Kickstarter turns out to be a great way to reach out to other people with your ideas. Cheese schools have contacted me and asked me if I want to collaborate with them or teach classes on the overlap between food and art. I’ve gotten the feedback I needed to take this work further.

Through Twitter I’ve gotten in touch with enthusiastic cheese bloggers. We’ve shared jokes and cheese facts, and one of them even got back to me after a couple of days with a map of New Zealand he had made out of electron microscope photos of a local blue cheese. He told me I had inspired him to make it, so now I even have a NZ ambassador that inspires me back.

I also reached out to Mike Geno, a talented artist that paints portraits of cheese. He was recently featured in The New York Times for his work, and this is how I got to know him. We obviously share the passion for cheese, but we also realized that we have the same mission about discovering cultures through food, even if the modes of expression are different. As he was heads down with new commissions lately and I am wrapping up my spring semester, we agreed to meet sometime over the summer to talk more about each others work. Looking forward to it.

Oh, and I also have to mention the awesome cheese hat I got from one of my backers. That made my day!