Joan Bryant A moment held forever with the click of a camera lens keeps a local woman focused on her life as a hippie in the 1960s.

She was a young woman passionate about freedom, love and music who left her home in Indiana to experience the “three days of peace and music” promised by the promoters of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. The festival was Aug. 15 to 17, 1969.

The 22-year-old said good-bye for a few days to her husband, a student at Indiana University in Bloomington, and their two children, ages 6 and 3. She and a girlfriend found a ride with another friend and took off to a 600-acre farm in Bethel, N.Y., in the Catskill Mountains, where 33 musical acts were scheduled to play.

“We both wanted to go, but someone had to stay home with the kids. I prevailed,” she recalled.

She borrowed a sleeping bag, threw some long skirts and other brightly colored clothes into a duffel bag and was on her way. Like most of those who attended, she didn’t have a ticket.

That young woman was Joan Bryant, owner of Indiana Joan’s at the Paraiso shopping center, 350 Via Las Brisas, No. 130, Newbury Park. She sells fashion and jewelry—some of which she designs and creates herself.

Her gift for style is evident in the photograph snapped by rock music photographer Jim Marshall. Bryant and a friend she knew in Indiana, who goes by the name Fantuzzi, found themselves among the sea of humanity of 400,000 to 500,000 people at Woodstock. To celebrate their joy when they ran into each other, they began dancing.

The moment of their reunion was caught on film and appeared in Life magazine. Then, when Newsweek noted the 25year anniversary of Woodstock in1994, Bryant and Fantuzzi were on the cover of that magazine. Now the 40th anniversary of the festival has the photo popping up again.

“It’s my 15 minutes of fame that keeps coming back. That photo has legs,” Bryant said.

The picture has had more impact on her life than the actual event did, she said.

Each time the photo surfaces, members of the media call her to find out what happened to the young woman in the picture and to hear firsthand what it was like to experience the legendary Woodstock.

Bryant recalls “a lot of open drug smoking.” And, after the rain, a lot of people swam naked in a pond to clean off the mud.

She was there when folk singer Richie Havens kicked off the festival with the song “High Flyin’ Bird” and stayed until after guitarist Jimi Hendrix closed the festival.

She remembers hearing Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane. The Grateful Dead, Joan Baez, The Who, Santana, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young also performed.

The festival is known for its massive traffic jams and shortages of food, water, and medical and sanitary facilities. But Bryant remembers how good it felt to be there.

“At the time hippies were not accepted. It was nice to be in a place with like-minded people who were all accepting. There was a good vibe,” she said.

There was no violence at the festival.

Bryant at first made her way to the front by the stage, but eventually she went to the back of thcrowd, where brightly colored buses offered brown rice and vegetables from the Hog Farm, commune that provided free food to those at the festival.

“There were impromptu music events at the back of thfestival. People had broughtheir instruments and jusbegan playing,” Bryant recalled. Woodstock was full ofriendly, happy people getting along—sharing spacand food, she said. There waonly one time of concernwhen she helped a young

man on psychedelic drugget through a bad night, shsaid. “We sat together by a firpit. He was having a very difficult time. He was shaking a lot. I sat beside him and comforted him.”

As the ’60s disappeared into the ’70s, Bryant grew up along with her children. Shremembers having nothing plain in their home. Any white fabric that came into the house—sheets, T-shirtswhatever—was soon tiedyed, she said.

“I always made clothes for myself, and being gifted in that way has made me able to make a living.”

Bryant said she tries to keep things fresh with her playful imagination by sharing the creativity process in craft workshops at her store. At the end of October she’ll offer a class to create shrines for the Day of the Dead.

Those who come into her store and mention Woodstock can hear her memories firsthand and leave with a gift, she said.