Our current list of vendors can be found here.
Chippewa menu here.
Dear friends, artists, and attendees,
We are now arriving at IV.
What an incredible journey you have taken us on. From the very beginning, we had unconventional ideas and intentions for this festival, and now we’re seeing those dreams slowly brought to reality. The creations, friendships, ideas, and pure joy that you have delivered to this festival have brought us to tears and laughter (sometimes both at the same time). This is why we are once again calling upon you: the dancers, architects, writers, students, designers, actors, inventors, and those of you few-and-far-between. Let this be a moment for your voice to be heard. Our open art call is truly an “equal opportunity” call – all forms of art will be considered and workshopped.
All proposals should be submitted to creative@eauxclaires.com by March 23, 2018
Full details for a proposal and the process can be found here:
Eaux Claires RFP – Open Call for Art Proposals
We are once again eagerly awaiting your submissions.
We’ll join you there…
– EXC Creative Team
May we have a quiet word? While we can’t wait for the big sights and big sounds of the Eaux Claires festival, we’re equally thrilled that this year’s gathering will include beautifully crafted literature in a beautifully crafted space. Throughout the festival six accomplished writers of diverse background, genre, and experience (Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Kao Kalia Yang, Joe Horton, Frank Bures, Alissa Nutting, and Dean Bakopoulos—see bios below) will speak their words for an audience of you.
Hosted riverside in the lightHouse these readings will serve as an intimate (audience limit 2-4; performance lasts 3-5 minutes) shelter from the crowd and the loud, the thump and the thousands—where words pass eye to eye and heart to heart. The crowds can wait.
Coming to Eaux Claires with words just for you:
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
The Glory. The Gospel. The Red Clay. The Blues. She lifts her voice. She sings. She poems. She calls in need of response. She offers in hopes of “woman, well-done.”
Honorée Fanonne is the author of four books of poetry, most recently, The Glory Gets (2015). Her current, in-progress book project, The Age of Phillis, imagines the life and times of the Revolutionary-era poet Phillis Wheatley, a former slave who was the first woman of African descent to publish a book. For the extensive research for this project, Professor Jeffers traveled to Senegal, West Africa, the United Kingdom, and New England. She has won fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Witter Bynner Foundation through the Library of Congress. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. A prose writer as well, Professor Jeffers is at work on her first novel; she is the recipient of the Tennessee Williams’ Scholarship in Fiction from the Sewanee Writers Conference and the Goodheart Prize for Fiction from Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee Review. She blogs on her online site Phillis Remastered, and her essays and stories have appeared in Black Renaissance Noire, Callaloo, Common-Place: the Interactive Journal of Early American Life, Indiana Review, JENda: A Journal of Cultural and African Studies, The Kenyon Review, The Kenyon Review Online, New England Review, StoryQuarterly, and Virginia Quarterly Review. A native southerner, she has lived on the prairie since 2002, where she is Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.
List of Publications
The Glory Gets (Wesleyan University Press, 2015)
Red Clay Suite (Southern Illinois University Press, 2007)
Outlandish Blues (Wesleyan University Press, 2003)
The Gospel of Barbecue (Kent State University Press, 2000)
Website: www.honoreejeffers.com
Kao Kalia Yang
She asked the librarian, her voice a whisper, “Are there books about people like me, like my mom and my dad?”
The librarian handed the girl books about the Chinese, the Japanese, the Vietnamese…
Her hands full of books about other girls with black hair and brown eyes, the Hmong girl said, “One day, a little girl will be able to come to the bookshelves of a bigger world and find a book about the people she loves, the people who love her.”
Kao Kalia Yang was born on the eve of a new year in Ban Vinai Refugee camp in Loei, Thailand. Deprived of the celebrations, tens of thousands of Hmong waited in the dust for a future faraway. For Kalia, that future began on July 27, 1987 when her family immigrated to St. Paul, Minnesota, as remnants of America’s Secret War in Laos, a war that decimated two-thirds of her population.
Kalia grew up in the McDonough Housing Project, in a government-subsidized house haunted by the spirit of a dead boy, and a 900 square feet home with 2.5 bedrooms built in 1895. Kalia and her siblings had the privilege of their father’s poetry to shield them from the poverty of their lives. Her mother’s fortitude gave Kalia the courage to pursue degrees from Carleton College and Columbia University’s School of the Arts where she went as Deans Fellow and with funding from the Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
Kalia is the author of the award-winning The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, the first Hmong-authored book to gain national distribution from a literary press, the only book to have ever garnered two Minnesota Book Awards, and the bestselling book in Coffee House Press history. Her new book, The Song Poet, is the first Hmong book to come forth from a national publisher, to be represented by a literary agent, and fortifies Kalia’s literary voice, not only for her people, but for all those who’ve known displacement, war, hunger, and the power of hope in humanity.
Joe Horton
Fleshed entropy channeling Black Dada Nihilusmus and the whole line of ancestral odes to the great river. Once word-septic. Cleansed by the irrational. Working to free every light dulled by order.
Best known for his work with experimental rap acts No Bird Sing and Mixed Blood Majority, emcee Joe Horton has gained an international following for his powerful live performances and stark, abstract writing style. In recent years, Horton has applied his distinctive artistic voice to essays, poetry, videos, and vocal improvisation. Horton was profiled in MPLS/STP Magazine as a part of the Young Poet’s Society and is a co-founder of F I X, a rap crew consisting of himself, Kill the Vultures, and Kristoff Krane.
Frank Bures
The world is stories, a flow of tongues, the writer not a guide but guided.
Frank Bures is the author of The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death and the Search for the Meaning of the World’s Strangest Syndromes, His work has been included in the Best American Travel Writing, and selected as “Notable” in the Best American Essays and Best American Sports Writing.
More at frankbures.com
Alissa Nutting and Dean Bakopoulos
Two voices, cross-scripted, line by line by life.
Alissa Nutting is author of the short story collection Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, selected by judge Ben Marcus as winner of the 6th Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, and the novel, Tampa, (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2013), which has been optioned for film by HBO. A new novel is forthcoming from Ecco in early 2017. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, Fence, BOMB, Elle, The New York Times, Conduit, and O: The Oprah Magazine, as well as the fairy tale anthology My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. She holds and MFA from the University of Alabama, and a PhD from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. She teaches at Grinnell College in Iowa.
Dean Bakopoulos’ first novel, Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon, was a New York Times Notable Book; his second novel, My American Unhappiness was named one of the year’s best novels by The Chicago Tribune, and his latest novel, Summerlong was published to critical acclaim and made the independent bookstore bestseller list. His fiction and essays have appeared in many publications including Zoetrope, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, Real Simple, and the New York Times, and his screenplay adaptation of Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon will soon be released as a film starring James Franco and Rashida Jones. The winner of Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, Bakopoulos teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program and is writer-in-residence at Grinnell College in Iowa.
From the beginning, Justin, Aaron, and I have talked about the idea that Eaux Claires could become a place where all forms of expression can flourish and be experienced together over one experimental weekend. And while we specifically credit music in our title, we also intend to encourage dance, literature, film, and really all genres of art to grow within our community simultaneously. Last year was the beginning of that dream and was the first step towards creating an artistic environment that extends past your typical concert in a field. This year, I’m happy to share that we’ve taken another step towards facilitating a creative melting pot with some exciting projects that sees all of these disciplines mingle within the experiential installations that have become an identity of this festival.
We hosted an open call for art submissions this winter. What I discovered was an overwhelming response of submissions from our creative community. I’m excited to see those artists bring their vision to the festival this year alongside of the projects that we have been planning since we adjourned last July. I’m honored to share the details of this years art program at Eaux Claires. I encourage you to participate, explore, and create with the many projects found on the grounds this year. We’ll Join You There…
-Michael Brown, Creative Director
BAROQUE
A collaborative performance project from renowned sculptor Edoardo Tresoldi, Michael Brown, James McVinnie, and Griffin McMahon. Baroque will feature a once in a lifetime convergence of compositional organ music set within a massive baroque organ cuboid sculpture created by Edoardo Tresoldi. Baroque, which redefines musical performance and fine art, is a true highlight of our 2016 art program.
Sculptor, painter, and stage designer, Edoardo Tresoldi has an artistic, creative, and free approach. At the age of nine years, he took his first drawing lessons from the Milanese painter Mario Straforini. He later studied design and visual arts at the Institute of Art of Monza. In 2009 he moved to Rome and began working as a scene painter for various film projects. The scenery became a testing laboratory. From 2013 on, he has created sculptures and works in metal mesh.
Organist James McVinnie is internationally renowned both as soloist and collaborator in new music. His boundless approach to music has led him to collaborations with some of the world’s leading composers and performers. Nico Muhly, Martin Creed (winner of the 2001 Turner Prize), Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), Pee Wee Ellis, Max de Wardener, Mara Carlyle, David Lang (winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in music) and Bryce Dessner (The National) have written works for him. Recent highlights have included solo appearances at the Royal Festival Hall at London’s Southbank Centre, London’s Barbican Centre, the Kilkenny Festival, on stage in Barrie Kosky’s production of Handel’s Saul at Glyndebourne 2015, the Holland Festival with Oneohtrix Point Never and the Volksbühne, Berlin with Stargaze and André de Ridder.
Griffin McMahon is emerging as a unique and versatile organist / pianist and collaborator in the New York music scene. Equally at home in the worlds of classical, sacred, and indie rock music, Griffin has performed at diverse venues ranging from concert halls like Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), Mechanics Hall and the Kimmel Center to rock venues like the Mercury Lounge, Rockwood Music Hall, and Brooklyn Bowl. He has performed several times on the world’s largest functioning pipe organ, the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia. In November 2014, Griffin performed in a historic eighteen-hour complete organ works of Bach marathon concert at St. Peter’s Church in New York City, live-streamed by WQXR radio to thousands of listeners. Born and raised in western Massachusetts, Griffin is a graduate of The Juilliard School and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. He currently serves as Organ Scholar at Christ Church United Methodist in Manhattan.
TOPS IN HOPS
Hops production has been a staple in Wisconsin since the late 1830s. Hops were first introduced to Waukesha County around 1837. They were then introduced to Sauk County in 1842, which would later become the heart of the hops industry. With the Civil War ending, approximately 40,000 soldiers would be returning to their Wisconsin farms. Timed perfectly with the spike in hops due to problems with the crops in New York, the soldiers saw this as a perfect opportunity to make a lot of cash. By 1867, the state’s production was over 6,000,000lbs, topping out at over 11,000,000 by the end of 1867. Following this, the hops problems had been resolved and by 1880, Wisconsin’s crop dropped to under 2,000,000lbs, nearly disappearing by the turn of the century.
These vine installations pay homage to the Wisconsin hops industry and the vital role the state played in our nation’s hops history. Now is the perfect time, as the beginning of August finds the beautiful hops cones beginning to flower. Squeeze them. Smell them. Welcome to Wisconsin.
PUBLIC WORKS INSTALLATION: EAU CLAIRE
BRLSQ & Associates
This is a site-specific mural installation that will be built and painted live during the festival by Burlesque of North America’s handpicked team of talented visual artists. Stop by anytime and see as the piece builds, with the artists applying layer after layer of painted panels comprised of found and reused wooden signage, shipping pallets, construction waste and more scavenged from around Wisconsin and Minnesota. Burlesque of North America is most well known for their visual contributions to the world of music and beyond. Located in Minneapolis, they have worked extensively producing work for clients such as Arcade Fire, Rhyme Sayers, Bonnaroo Music Festival, and First Avenue. Their Public Works Division sees BRLSQ and its extended family accessing their roots to bring high quality public art into the world.
THE BIG EAUX
The Big EAUX is a 3D-mapped art installation by Antic Studios – a local production company widely known for intricate stage designs and stunning visual content. Standing at close to 8′ tall and 40′ wide, the installation is a perfect reminder of our place and time over the weekend. Once the sun sets, The Big EAUX transforms into a dazzling light display filled with colorful animations.
RIVERPODS
THNDRPPL are a collective from Lisbon, Portugal formed by media designer Francisco Furtado (PT), musicologist Trever Hagen (USA), software programmer Ed Barber (UK) and visual artist Inês Aleixo Leiria (PT). They develop work concerning the virtual architecture of sensory spaces and its relation to social experience.
The Chippewa River cuts through the valley of the Eaux Claires festival. Its waters shape the region’s culture, economy and beauty. RIVERPODS is an installation inviting everyone to commune with the Chippewa, on land. Underneath parasols spread across the waterfront, you enjoy a chill dusk with your friends while underwater recordings submerge you into the river… Come the night, Eaux Claires takes on a new life, as does the Chippewa. Beneath the moon, RIVERPODS mutates into a reactive light, color and sound environment where river dwellers are immersed in the nature of the Chippewa, beaming and pulsing, beautiful and treacherous, flowing until dawn.
MOMENTARY PASSING
“Momentary Passing” is the work of Riley Messina of ERBA Floral. Based out of Portland, Oregon, she is known for the cohesive simplicity and balance in her aesthetic. As a floral designer and stylist, Riley has worked throughout the United States and abroad.
The installation “Momentary Passing” is meant to accentuate the emotion of heightened visual appeal in one moment and in the next, a bittersweet realization and acceptance of the transience of it all. A reflection of life and decay set within The Creek stage to be enjoyed during performances by Eighth Blackbird, Bryce Dessner, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy.
CIRCADAS
Davy Sumner creates compositions and installations inspired by the natural world, noise, physics, and society. He often uses sound spatialization, feedback, chaotic systems, and custom technologies in his work.
Discovered in 2016, Circadas spend the majority of their lives in larval form underground. After reaching maturity through a molting process, they emerge in swarms to congregate on the ground, in trees, and on man-made structures. The brood synchronizes their development in large numbers to overwhelm predators and ensure species survival.
THE AMPOOLS
Lighting designers Carl Faber and Michael Brown have been collaborating together since their introduction at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2005. Expanding on their work from last year’s festival, The Ampools is their latest collaboration, a site-specific lighting installation that encompasses the entire grounds of the festival. This year features a collaboration with our guest video artists to transform the grounds into an immersive installation of its own.
CHUCK-U
Chuck U is an artist from Minneapolis. He draws strange creatures in strange environments in a style that can be described as “very linesey” as in, he uses lots of lines. He’s been featured in Juxtapoz, Beautiful Decay, And so so many blogs. He is responsible for most of the beer can art for Indeed Brewery in Minneapolis. Check out his site at www.chucku.com or follow him on Instagram @chucku612
IN-MOTION
John Mark has produced original productions for the Weismann Art Museum, Lab Theater, Nu-Mode Magazine, MSP Airport, Red Eye Theatre, Public Functionary, The Southern Theater’s Artshare Program, and choreographed for musical artists like Poliça, Tickle Torture, Prof, Har Mar Superstar, Big Cats, Grrrl Prty, Lizzo, and Little Scream. He enjoys opportunities to choreograph dance in unusual places. In addition making dance on stage and on studio sets, John Mark has created choreography in abandoned buildings, warehouses, gardens, garages, art galleries, airports, and even exercise equipment factories. In Motion is a new collaboration with Eaux Claires that seeks to infuse dance into the festival weekend both on and off the stage.
Asht
Asht is a structured contemporary dance improvisation piece coupled with choreographed sections, performed by Flux Dance Project. The six performers will carry the intention of listening to instinct and executing truthful reactions to the music, other dancers, nature and audience members. Asht is a work under the intent of connecting with and matching the raw beauty of nature.
With Our There Being the White Side of Here (Gregory Euclide)
Expanding on the celebrated whiteboard artworks created in his classroom, and featured as a true MN Original, artist Gregory Euclide will help create an immersive whiteboard installation that celebrates the temporary nature of Eaux Claires. He has created a whiteboard artwork that audience members are invited to erase, one by one, in small portions as a contribution to the artwork’s destruction. This process will be ongoing throughout the festival. Be sure to check in multiple times to see the progression and choices made by other members who attend. The erasing of this work is an unavoidable visualization of how our existence is built on the destruction of the natural world. On the exterior of this installation and at selected times posted during the festival, Euclide will demonstrate and create some of these beautiful works in real-time, only to be destroyed by audience members in attendance.
Take It With You (Gregory Euclide) (Various Locations)
A truly rewarding experiment for those willing to seek it out, artist Gregory Euclide has created multiple, intricate dioramas of lost worlds which twist the perspective of viewers. But these works aren’t displayed in the open. These works are buried on the grounds of Eaux Claires with small clues that lead to their location. Once you’ve found the location of these worlds, look closely, as each artwork is only visible through a small peephole for viewers to peer-into or photograph as they see fit.
Gregory Euclide is an artist and teacher living in the Minnesota River Valley. His work has been featured in The Nature of Nature at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (2014-2015), Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape at MASS MoCA (2008-2009), Otherworldly at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York (2011), Small Worlds at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio (2011), and was presented as a solo exhibition, Nature Out There, at the Nevada Museum of Art (2012). Euclide’s work has been reviewed and featured in publications such as: Art News, Sculpture Magazine, Art Ltd Magazine, Hi Fructose Magazine and Juxtapoz Magazine. His work is also featured on the 2012 Grammy Award winning album covers of the musical group Bon Iver and on the cover of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #43. Euclide was awarded three Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grants through the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Jerome Foundation Residency through the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary. In addition, he was a recipient of the 2011-12 Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists and the 2015-2016 Mcknight Fellowship for Visual Artists. Euclide received his MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
LIGHTHOUSE
The LIGHTHOUSE celebrates urban ecotourism and sustainability. A fully functioning mobile hotel room, it moves as the flow of the city requires, occupying places both celebrated and ignored, using the city as its lobby. Sixty percent of Minnesotans live in the Twin Cities and buildings consume half of their energy use. LIGHTHOUSE personalizes and celebrates the potential for a more sustainable future in building design. LIGHTHOUSE will also host the literary program for Eaux Claires in 2016 with personalized one-on-one readings available inside from our inspiring authors.
TEMPLATE
Template is a combination sculptural and performance environment created by Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels and VNESSWOLFCHILD.
Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels makes environments to subtly shift inner and outer interactions. Her large-scale sculptures incrementally build ordinary housing materials into the unexpected, creating moments of discovery and rest that cultivate both a curiosity and stillness of being. Bothwell Fels’ work is shown worldwide from Pioneer Works (New York) and Palais de Tokyo (Paris) to Sky High Gallery (Milwaukee).
VNESSWOLFCHILD is a musician and interactive ritual healing performance artist who uses sound, installation, video and movement to create performances that encourage uncovering, understanding and integrating subtle aspects of existence. Most of VNESSWOLFCHILD’s recent works explore inner self through a practice of moving contemplation on Earthworm as a means to learn how to more deeply hear and commune with Mother Earth. Each work is an act of reverence for the divine feminine.
THE WOODS: WAY OF SEEING THINGS
THE WOODS is an invitation to see things. It’s an invitation to look past the meadow’s mown grass to where things are a little shadier, a little more secret, a little wilder. In The Woods, you can step off the path, feel the place you’re truly in, and see what’s around you. Maybe you’ll notice the way the light filters through the leaves. Maybe you’ll hear how the music fits around the trees. Maybe you’ll find art left behind by the warblers and the earthworms and the wind. Maybe you’ll find art left behind by someone who walked the woods before you. Maybe you’ll make art yourself. You never know what you’ll find.
OXBEAUX BY OXBOW DESIGNS
Oxbow Designs specializes in bespoke architecture and interiors focusing on the traditional disciplines of timber framing, woodworking, and stone masonry. They are honored to contribute to the Eaux Claires festival with the Wooded Stage, where S. Carey and others will give intimate performances for those that gather throughout the festival. This stage is Asian design in its modality using traditional joinery and a stone plinth foundation.
THE MUSICAL FENCE: REPRISE
This sound sculpture is an invitation. It’s an invitation to passersby to come and interact – with sounds and with each other. Just as a public basketball court contains an open, unwritten invitation to come play pick-up basketball, this sculpture contains an open invitation to come play “pick-up music.” The Musical Fence: Reprise honors The Musical Fence, an interactive public sound sculpture built by Paul Matisse in 1980. Led by Dan Joseph and sprout & co, a small team of artists, scientist-educators, and community members from Somerville, Massachusetts, have built this Reprise in the hope of breathing life into this idea — of making a public space for pick-up music making.
TIMESQUID (video artist)
Hal Lovemelt (The Timesquid), is a Minneapolis Video Artist in an intensely passionate and romantic relationship with video feedback, they do run into some rocky patches, but the make-up sex is always great.
VISIONQUEST (video artist)
Matt Bardins/Visionquest is a visual artist based in Minneapolis, MN returning to Eaux Claires after helping run video for the Dells Stage in 2015. One of the founding members of experimental interactive video company Playatta, Visionquest has performed with many Minneapolis acts including Poliça, Dosh, Doomtree, Taggart & Rosewood, Low, and most notably Marijuana Deathsquads.
BROWNSHOESONLY (video artist)
Nick Ciontea is a visual artist, educator, and electrical engineer transplanted from Wisconsin to Chicago. The owner and sole employee of video synthesizer company “brownshoesonly”. Doesn’t say no to wine. Wants a dog.
EFFIXX (video artist)
Anthony Ciannamea, aka EFFIXX, is a creative director working at the intersection of design, motion, and technology. He has directed and produced videos for musicians like Son Lux, indie labels Alpha Pup and Ghostly International, and has toured as a visual performance artist with Deru, Shigeto, Prefuse 73, after a residency at Low End Theory (SF). His latest project with Deru yielded the first album released on a handheld LED video projector – a modern-day time capsule. Entitled “1979”, the project explored themes of nostalgia and featured nine a/v collaborations between the two artists. Now based in California, Anthony works as an art director with modern chamber ensemble The Echo Society, and is launching a VR album series and physical music artifacts with 79Ancestors, a newly-formed interdisciplinary record label with partner Ben Wynn and acclaimed Adobe experience designer Yaniv De Ridder.
BIG PAUPER (video artist)
Big Pauper is a video artist, producer and all around mad scientist from Portland, OR. His work utilizes a treasure trove of self-hacked electronics (everything from the Fairlight CVI to the Sega Dreamcast) to concoct surreal broken scenes of stunning intrigue. He also makes custom glitch video art tools as BPMC (http://glitchart.com) & sound art instruments within the design collective Folktek (http://folktek.com).
DWARFCRAFT TRIPOLITH
Dwarfcraft Devices is an internationally known effects pedal and synthesizer company run from good old Eau Claire, WI. For just a shade under a decade Ben and Louise Hinz and their crew have been making new machines for new music. For the Eaux Claires festival, DC will present The Tripolith, an audio visual instrument that invites you to participate as well as observe. Three control panels create and manipulate sound while abstract videos are projected upon three screens surrounding the experience. The structures are made by local artist Ben Holmen with additional visual work from videographer Jesse Johnson.
CHIPPEWALL
ChippewaLL is a chiptune-voiced musical wall that allows festivalgoers to create music together. Capacitive touch circuitry is spaced in a grid behind the surface of the wall to form a tone matrix. These touch “nodes” are used to detect hand movements in order to trigger note positions within the tone matrix. ChippewaLL is the work of Paul Varnado, an electrical engineer based in Lexington, KY.
SILENTLY STEAL AWAY
The Jack Raymond Show is a radio program that’s been broadcast every day for 48 years from a small, family-operated radio station in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. The host of the show, Jack Raymond, is a mysterious figure who has a loyal local following, and still gets fan mail, but he’s been dead for over 40 years. This film is the story of Jack Raymond and the eccentric radio station that has unwittingly influenced a generation of local artists, filmmakers, and musicians.
Andrew Swant is a Milwaukee-based filmmaker whose works include William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet, What What (In the Butt), Hamlet ADD, and the production of Frankie Latina’s Modus Operandi. Swant co-wrote and starred in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, which premiered at SXSW and was distributed by IFC. His work has been shown at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, White Columns (NY), Machine Project (LA), and at festivals such as SXSW, British Film Institute, and the American Film Institute.
UNITY AND GUIDANCE (Various Locations)
Working under the direction of Creative Director Michael Brown, Trace Richolson is the creative assistant for Eaux Claires. This is his first year interning with the festival. For the inaugural festival, he was production coordinator for The Banks, as well as the video artist and lighting designer for that space. He currently studies photography at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. He also works for the UWEC Event Production Crew as their Lead Production Technician.
The “Unity and Guidance” installations were conceived as symbols. A symbol of the unity this festival creates, through music, friendship, and a passion for togetherness. This festival is not something delivered to you. It is a community. We all come from different walks of life, but walking through the gates we are all united. We are here to guide each other and ultimately, enjoy the ride.
We’re excited to let you know about a new option to pay for Eaux Claires passes.
Introducing Affirm, our new payment method that allows you to buy your passes now and pay over time. When you use Affirm to buy passes to Eaux Claires on Eventbrite, you’ll go through a quick application process. Affirm provides a real–‐time credit decision and, if approved, allows you to choose between 3 or 6 monthly payments (rates from 10–‐30% APR).*
How Affirm Works
1. Visit the Eventbrite ticket page
2. Select your ticket and proceed to checkout
3. Select “Monthly Payments with Affirm” from the Payment Method drop–‐down menu
4. Complete the Affirm application for a real-time decision
5. If approved, confirm your Affirm loan and your order will be processed.
Have questions? Check out Affirm’s FAQs for more details: https://www.affirm.com/faqs/
*Down payment may be required. For purchases under $100, limited payment options are available. Credit check required, though checking your eligibility won’t affect your credit score. Affirm loans are made by Cross River Bank, a New Jersey–‐chartered bank, Member FDIC.
We have some food and drink announcements to share with you all! Enhancing our Food and Drink program was a big priority for the festival this year and we have some news that we hope excites you as much as it excites us!
The festival would like to welcome several food & drink newcomers – Clear Water BBQ, an Eau Claire smokehouse serving locally sourced meats, Dumpling Darling, an Iowa City Korean-inspired restaurant, and The Marigold, an Eau Claire mobile café. Daryl’s Dog House, Retro Burger/KC Diner, and Shadrach’s Fiery Furnace Traveling Pizza Company among others will also be onsite. (A full list of vendors can be found below.)
Wisconsin favorites returning to the festival for the second year include Eau Claire-based Tutto Bene Wood Fired Pizza, 9 Degrees, which serves Olson’s homemade ice cream, and Pete’s Pops, which peddles ice pops in flavors like Strawberry Basil, Avocado, and Pineapple Jalapeño.
Six Madison-based food carts, including Curd Girl, and Banzo, and six Twin Cities food trucks which include Foxy Falafel and MN Nice Cream will join the festival this year. (A full list of food trucks and vendors can be found below.)
Minneapolis-based Dogwood Coffee will be at the festival with their vintage Zamboni, serving drinks like Zamboni Cold Brew in refillable ice hockey water bottles, Maple Syrup Infused Cold Brew, Almond Milk Iced Lattes, and Drip Coffee.
Eaux Claires is also enhancing its beverage program with local, national, and international brewers and winemakers. Locally loved Leinenkugel will return to the festival with their Summer Shandy, Original, and Light brews. Eau Claire brewery The Brewing Projekt will serve Gunpowder IPA. St. Paul’s Summit Brewing Company will serve Extra Pale Ale, Saga IPA, and Session IPA. California-based craft favorite Lagunitas will pour their Pilsner and IPA and Danish brewer Mikkeller, one of the highest rated and most sought after brewers in the world, will pour a specially craved pale ale called Eaux Henry! Eaux Sally! The festival will also welcome local winemaker Autumn Harvest Winery and Orchard’s semi-sweet red Fionnrua and semi-sweet white Northern Lights varieties.
VIP offerings for Enhanced Chippewa ticket buyers will be announced in the weeks to come. We hope you are as excited about this as us!
EAUX CLAIRES 2016 FOOD & DRINK LINEUP
9 Degrees (Eau Claire, WI)
Mackinac Island Fudge Ice Cream
Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Strawberry Ice Cream
Mocha Mud Pie Ice Cream
Clear Water BBQ (Eau Claire, WI)
Pulled Pork
Pulled Brisket
Ribs
Conley’s Ice (St Louis, MO)
Fresh Squeezed Lemonade
Frozen Lemonade
Shaved Ice
Croix Valley BBQ (River Falls, WI)
Pig Wings
Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Ribs
Daryl’s Dog House (White Bear Lake, MN)
Chicago Style Hot Dogs
Dogwood Coffee (Minneapolis, MN and Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN)
Zamboni Cold Brew
Maple Syrup Infused Cold Brew
Almond Milk Iced Lattes
Drip Coffee
Dumpling Darling (Iowa City, IA)
Pork, Beef, Veggie, and Tofu Steamed Dumplings and Bao Buns
Kimchi
Spicy Edamame
Fat Rice Noodles with Red Pepper Sauce
Jonny Pops (St. Louis Park, MN)
All-Natural Frozen Fruit and Cream Pops
KP Katering (Chippewa Falls, WI)
Burgers
Wraps
Cheese Curds
Salads
Pete’s Pops (Milwaukee, WI)
Strawberry Basil Pops
Avocado Pops
Pineapple Jalapeño Pops
Chocolate Sea Salt Pops
Retro Burger / KC Diner (Elk Mound, WI)
Fresh, Quality Beef Burgers
Hand-Cut Potato Twisters on a Stick
The Marigold (Eau Claire, WI)
Gelato
Veggie, Southwest, and Italian Wraps
Shadrach’s Fiery Furnace Traveling Pizza Company (Orlando, FL)
Neopolitan Style Pizza
Toppers Pizza Food Truck (Menomonie, WI)
French Fried Onions Pizza
Oven-Roasted Tomatoes Pizza
Mac ‘n Cheese Pizza
Tater Tots Pizza
Topperstix
Tutto Bene Wood Fired Pizza (Eau Claire, WI)
Pizza Margherita
Sausage Mushroom Pizza
Pepperoni Pizza
Chicken Pesto Pizza
Vegetarian Pizza
FOOD TRUCKS – MADISON
Banzo (Madison, WI)
Falafel Pita Chicken and Beef Skewers
Falafel Balls
Hummus and Pita
Hand Cut Chips
Homemade Baklava
Curd Girl (Madison, WI)
Fried Cheese Curds with Gourmet Sauces
Layla’s (Madison, WI)
Kabobs
Rice Bowls
Salads
Melted Craft Grilled Cheese (Madison, WI)
Chef-Designed Sandwiches and Sides
Slide Food Cart (Madison, WI)
Pulled Pork Sliders
Buffalo Chicken Sliders
Slow Cooked Sirloin Sliders
Fried Sweet Potato Slices
Taqueria Sabor Querétaro (Madison, WI)
Tacos
Burritos
Quesadillas
Tortas
Rice and Beans
FOOD TRUCKS – MINNEAPOLIS
Foxy Falafel Food Truck (Twin Cities, MN)
Pulled Lamb Sandwich
Falafel Sandwich
Spicy Fries
Hummus and Pita
Gastrotruck (Minneapolis, MN)
Spicy BBQ Pulled Pork
Grassfed Beef Brisket with Horseradish Slaw
Black Bean Burger with Apple Jalapeno Relish
Kabomelette (Twin Cities, MN)
Kabobs
Omelettes
MN Nice Cream Food Truck (Twin Cities, MN)
Vanilla and Chocolate Ice Cream Cones with Toppings
O’Cheeze Food Truck (Twin Cities, MN)
BACHN Grilled Cheese: bacon, apple, walnuts, honey, fontina cheese
COBR Grilled Cheese: Chipotle pulled chicken, bacon, ranch sauce, pepper jack
Not So Classic Grilled Cheese: Dubliner Irish Cheddar, Havarti, cheddar
Potter’s Pasties Food Truck (Twin Cities, MN)
The Traditional Meat Pie: minced beef, carrots, potato, onion, gravy
Thai Veggie Pie: Potato, carrot, spinach, ginger in red Thai coconut cream sauce
The Pig Pie: Braised pulled pork, apples, onion, coriander
Rhubarb Lemon, Chocolate, and Peanut Butter Sweet Pies
WINE & BEER
Leinenkugel (Chippewa Falls, WI)
Summer Shandy
Wisconsin Red Pale Ale
Oktoberfest
Original
Light
Mikkeller (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Eaux Henry! Eaux Sally! Pale Ale
Summit Brewing Company (St. Paul, MN)
Extra Pale Ale
Saga IPA
Session IPA
Lagunitas (Petaluma, CA)
Pilsner
IPA
The Brewing Projekt (Eau Claire, WI)
Gunpowder IPA
Autumn Harvest Winery and Orchard (Chippewa Falls, WI)
Fionnrua
Northern Lights
Sometime in the dead of winter, probably about the time we were recording this frozen video, Justin Vernon and the Eaux Claires crew asked me to incorporate a “literary element” into this year’s festival.
Nobody really knows what that means. Except that it doesn’t mean sit and listen, stand and read. We’re trying to weave the words in other ways. Find a way to make them big, make them small, make them alive.
It’ll be baby steps. But one thing I’ve known dead-solid from the get-go: I wanted Honorée Fanonne Jeffers there. Have since before this festival existed. Have since the moment I heard Honorée preach her poem “On Listening to the Two-Headed Lady Blow Her Horn” from The Gospel of Barbecue. That experience echoed in me over a decade, until it finally re-emerged and found a new home (that story–and more about Honorée and her poetry–can be read here).
Even in snippet, even out of context, the poetry of Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, a native southerner, lifts me just as music lifts me, through a combination of mystery and familiarity, as when she writes, “I take the land as text, as a preacher might,” or “the smell of peaches liquoring the air,” and finally, in a reference any plow-boy can love, “The edible smell/of turned dirt.”
Imagine words like that, imagine a poet like this, flowing beside the Chippewa.
It’s happening.
– Michael Perry, festival narrator
We have important news and announcements for all campers and persons planning to camp at Eaux Claires this summer. The festival is happy to announce that all camping for its 2016 festival will once again be held at the recently expanded Whispering Pines & Fields campgrounds. After operating the Pines and Fields at full capacity in 2015, the festival was poised to create new grounds this year to meet the festival’s large camping demand. However, with Whispering Pines’ recent expansion and planned improvements, the site was not only able to accommodate all of its campers, but was also the most convenient option for festival attendees.
If you have already purchased a campsite for the festival, you are all set and automatically moved to Whispering Pines/Whispering Fields. Policies will remain the same (no assigned sites / first come, first serve). Please click HERE for answers to most common questions. If you still have additional questions, we’re available at info@eauxclaires.com.
Whispering Pines is just a few minutes ride on a free shuttle to and from the festival site. Camping passes are sold separately from festival passes and are on sale at www.eauxclaires.com; prices range from $165 for a standard campsite; $300 for oversized vehicles. Upon purchase, campers will also have the option to add tents, sleeping bags, and camping chairs. In addition to the capacity and operational camping upgrades, Eaux Claires will provide upgraded showers for all campers to use as well as a general store and coffee vendors throughout the grounds. Complimentary shuttles to both the festival grounds and the addition of shuttles to downtown Eau Claire on Thursday night.
Dear friends,
We’ve had an enthusiastic response to the plans for our art program at our 2016 festival and there are some truly beautiful projects currently in the works with some inspiring artists. Don’t worry, we’ll be announcing the details of these projects as we get closer to the festival.
Many of you have directly inquired how to become involved or become a contributing visual artist at this year’s festival. I’m happy to announce that we’re hosting an open call for art proposals. This is an equal opportunity open call and I encourage everyone to apply who wants to get involved. If you’re not one to participate, then please share this post with others in your creative community and encourage them to apply.
If you are a group of fabricators, dancers, actors, architects, designers, artists, students, or all of the above and more, this is your opportunity. Wield your expressive voice wisely.
All proposals should be submitted to creative@eauxclaires.com by May 6, 2016. The full details for proposals can be found here:
Eaux Claires RFP- Open Call for Art Proposals
We look forward to your submissions and hope to see you at the festival!
Michael Brown
Creative Director
