Wimberley photographer and adventurer Rodney Bursiel recounted his childhood learning to scuba dive and took the audience underwater with some of his award-winning photos of Great White Sharks at Wimberley StoryFest 2022. Bursiel was one of dozens of stor
Tim Leibrock told his personal story of traveling to Japan and learning the Japanese art of kimono dyeing. He was assisted by his wife, Yuko, in unspooling silk after it has been transformed. PHOTO BY REBECCA MINNICK
Well-known singer/songwriters Adam Carroll, Slaid Cleaves and Susan Gibson PHOTOS BY REBECCA MINNICK
Singer/Songwriters from left, Elliott Rogers, Chris Carroll and Nathan Brown.
Up-and-coming songwriters/musicians Sierra Brown and Sam Downing.
Wimberley chef Jay Bachman, who travels to disaster areas to help feed victims and first-responders, connected food to comfort as people face trying times. Rounding out Sunday’s program were Mary Schulte and her puppets (“Eyes Wide Open”), Storytell
WVACA hosts Wimberley StoryFest 2022
Every venue was sold out for the fourday Wimberley StoryFest event hosted by the Wimberley Valley Arts and Cultural Alliance.
“WVACA did a storytelling day in 2020 right before everything shut down,” Don Minnick, chair of the Wimberley StoryFest 2022 Committee, said. “… It was very well received and proved the concept for this notion of story being an important thing. As we thought about it this year, we expanded that notion to include the idea of story in all its forms. That is writ ing, poetry, singer-songwriter – it is traditional visual storytelling. We tried to expose Wimberley to story in all of those ways.”
The event started out with a poetry night held at Middleton Brewery with local and area performers.
“Who knew Wimberley could sell out a poetry night,” Minnick said. “It was awesome. People were thrilled.”
Friday night, a singer-songwriter event at the chapel on the grounds of Old Glory Ranch was attended by 170 people. It featured up-and-coming artists like Sierra Brown and Sam Downing before graduating to favorites like Nathan Brown, Chris Carroll and Elliott Rogers. The headliners were Susan Gibson, Slaid Cleaves and Adam Carroll. Each group swapped songs and shared the stories behind the songs.
“I think the people who attended were blown away,” Minnick said. “One of the attendees told me it was a party for 170 people that felt like a house concert.”
On Saturday, local storytellers were at EmilyAnn Theatre and the Opera House at Pioneer Town.
“These were almost exclusively local people,” Minnick said. “We wanted to focus on local stories and local Wimber ley culture. These were our friends and neighbors. They were not professional storytellers. They were great storytellers, and had a story to tell, but they were people who we know. We had stories on Wimberley culture. We had ghost stories. We had stories that were odd and enduring Wimberley characters.”
Saturday was capped off by W.F. Strong, whose show Stories From Texas is aired on 32 National Public Radio stations across the state.
Sunday featured “illustrated storytellers” at the Wimberley Playhouse including local Rodney Bursiel, who won a National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest award in 2017. He told the stories of his photographs, including his treks around the world af ter great white sharks. He was followed by Jay Bachman, owner of Wimberley Cafe, and his program on Comfort Food sharing his tale of joining Mercy Chef as they help feed victims of disaster as well as first responders across the nation and beyond.
Sunday evening, concluded the event with a viewing of CLUE: ON STAGE at the Wimberley Playhouse.
Minnick said the event was a great success and that he hopes it will “lay the groundwork for events in the future of this kind.”
“We’ve been getting rave reviews for each event,” Minnick said. “We were sold out at every venue. I think this really puts Wimberley on the map for this notion of how a story can present itself in all of these different ways… There may be other cities in Texas that claim to be the Story Capital of Texas, but I am prepared to make the case that the Wimberley Valley has more talent in each one of these artistic endeavors than any other town in Texas. If you want to try and prove me wrong, go for it.”
For more information, visit wimberleystoryfest.org.