Peace Oak Craft Club and NRN Art Project
Peace Oak Orchard was the venue last Saturday for the start of creation of NRN’s and Peace Oak’s contribution to From the Ground Up Art Exhibition at the Old Fire Station. Creatively led by Alice Walker and Sue Raikes, willow circles were spun with string and reeds and wildflowers; Peace-oakers transcribed their poems celebrating the Peace Oak and decorated them with leaf prints. Work continues this Thursday evening along with Peace Oak’s Craft Club. Find more details here.
Floodplain Meadow Art Day and Competition. Emily Terry reports:
On 18th July, Alice Walker held ‘Art in the Meadow’ on a beautifully sunny afternoon at Long Mead meadow. Artists of all ages and abilities came along to hear about the vital importance of this rare habitat both for 21st century agriculture and for the ecosystem services it provides, including climate change mitigation. They put their artistic skills towards creating their own depictions of the wildflower floodplain meadow, one of the most biodiverse habitats in the UK which is sadly diminishing with 97% of meadows lost in the last 100 years. This wonderful day enabled us all to play our part in saving this vital habitat from cultural extinction, which is accelerating its physical disappearance.
A big plea to everyone to enter your artwork to The Open University Floodplain Meadows Partnership Arts and Crafts Competition 2021 as this is an important part of their efforts to raise the profile of this important habitat. Please find the link to the submission form here.
If you want to put your voice towards urging the environment agency to reroute the flood alleviation channel to save the beautiful ancient Hinksey Meadow, take their survey before the 20th August, here – the scheme is being resubmitted for planning. With only 4 square miles left (the size of Heathrow Airport) we can’t afford to lose another 2 hectares. Despite their assurances to recreate what will be lost, research from Oxford University predicts it will take over 150 years for the majority of species that exist in an original floodplain hay meadow to colonise a restoration site (Woodcock, McDonald and Pywell, Journal of Applied Ecology, 2011).