By Jeremy Gragert
For the Chippewa Valley Post
The Eaux Claires Music & Arts Festival, in mid-August this year, has quickly become an annual reason to come together, sometimes from across the country, for friends, family, UW-Eau Claire alumni, musicians, and people simply falling in love with Eau Claire.
With so many local residents attending Eaux Claires, it was not uncommon for people to find neighbors they hadn’t seen in a year – since the first festival – despite living in the same neighborhood. Others came from a distance to reconnect.
Daina Booker, of Janesville, has found Eaux Claires to be the best annual opportunity to reunite with her UW-Eau Claire college roommate from over 20 years ago, who still lives here. It’s an opportunity that takes precedence even over other reunions.
“I’m actually feeling a bit guilty, because I’m missing my family reunion this weekend,” she confessed.
“I feel like (Eau Claire) is on the map now,” said Booker’s former roommate, Judy Wibel.
Since last year’s first festival, which they attended together, Eaux Claires is where they meet up now instead of the Twin Cities or Wisconsin Dells, they said.
They reflected on how much Eau Claire has changed since they moved to the city for college in the late 1980s, with the growing arts scene and support for local talent. Booker also noted that “the downtown is pretty exciting right now.”
Eau Claire resident Jake Lindgren chose to capture the sheer number of people he ran into during the festival’s two-day run by taking “selfie” photos with them and posting the photos on his personal Facebook page, under the hashtag #facesofeauxclaires (https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=%23facesofeauxclaires).
He posted some 60 photos with new and old friends this year, including local and national musicians and artists as well as local politicians, each with a personal message about who they are and positive ways they contribute to the community. Lindgren did the same project last year, and while he posted more photos this year, his phone battery died so many times he will never be sure how many friends he connected with.
Other Reunion Stories
Amy Stanfield and Amy O’Connor are friends who attended this year’s festival together, but hadn’t seen each other since a year ago. They originally met in Concert Choir while students at UW-Eau Claire roughly 10 years ago.
Stanfield now lives in Lake Geneva, and O’Connor in St. Paul, but within days after the festival O’Connor announced on social media that she would be moving back to Eau Claire with her partner Andy this fall. O’Connor’s blog Glen & Grail (http://www.glenandgrail.com/) profiled her weekend at the festival, and included the post “Eaux Claires: a reunion at the river.”
“I was going to set a goal for 100 hugs,” O’Connor said. “There is so much hugging.”
Davin Haukebo-Bol, a UW-Eau Claire grad who lives in Minneapolis without a car, was another festival-goer who was attracted back to Eau Claire for the festival. He said he would return to Eau Claire much more often if passenger train service connected the two cities.
“This would be (a favorite) weekend destination,” Haukebo-Bol said. “I would be here monthly, easily.”
After attending the festival last year, he decided to make it an annual event in part to see people again who are “off his radar.” However, he said he was disappointed that not as many friends flew in from across the country this year compared to last year.
Heidi Bonk grew up in Eau Claire and came back for her first Eaux Claires this year despite having moved to Houston, TX three months ago for a new job. She compared her return to “going away to college and not coming back until Thanksgiving,” as a way to test herself despite missing Eau Claire.
From Near and Far
Two recent UW-EC graduates said they are making the festival an annual event to reunite with friends and plug into the music scene being fostered here.
“Part of our heart is always in Eau Claire,” said Jenny Johns, who came to the festival from Minnesota with her partner Andrew.
Jennifer Yates (http://www.yatesfinearts.com/) travelled all the way from Whidbey Island near Seattle, WA to reunite with friends from Menomonie, even though she hasn’t lived in the Chippewa Valley for 16 years. As an artist who teaches metalsmithing to high school students on the island, she said what attracted her most was the art of the festival.
“It’s good to see people who are successful coming back, and supporting that,” Yates said, referring to Bon Iver frontman musician Justin Vernon moving back to Eau Claire and starting the festival as both a music and art festival.
UW-Eau Claire graduate, Greg Nelson, attending his second year of Eaux Claires, came last year all the way from New Zealand where he was going to graduate school.
“Last year was more of a reunion of people I hadn’t seen since graduating,” Nelson said. “It’s really convenient to meet up. You just show up and that’s it.”
This year Nelson lives in remote northern Wisconsin near Mercer doing conservation field work, and said Eaux Claires was a convenient place to meet up with his girlfriend, also a UW-Eau Claire graduate, who lives in the Twin Cities.
Will Nynas, an Eau Claire resident just days away from moving to New Jersey for a new job with his employer, Nestle S.A., said he made sure he stayed here long enough to attend the festival again this year.
“Last year I left smiley and happy for days,” he said. “This will be one of the things I come back for, see friends and family, (and to) catch great music.”
Zues Stark, an Eau Claire resident, found himself more a part of a neighborhood reunion while helping his partner Lori at her vendor tent in the festival’s “Homegrown Village” area, where local vendors clustered to sell their wares. Stark stood chatting with Eastside Hill neighbors, some of whom he hadn’t see for a year because, he said, they “don’t get out of their routine very often.”
In its second year, the festival has already become a welcome routine-breaker for some people. For others, it seems well on its way to becoming part of their routine as a vehicle for reunions.
Although dates for the 2017 festival have not yet been announced, many people with Eau Claire connections have indicated they are looking to plug it into their plans for next year. With so many people saying they plan to attend every year, the festival seems well on its way to becoming both an important reunion event and a way to bring together people from Eau Claire and around the country.
Photos by Jeremy Gragert, for the Chippewa Valley Post. The home page photo, taken Friday afternoon (Aug. 12), shows Aaron Dessner (left) and Lisa Hannigan performing on The Kills stage.