David Hockney's wood

[Nick Gibbs]

There's an interesting story in today's Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/ma ... sons-trees) about a wood the artist David Hockney has been painting. It's recently been cleared and the story in the paper is extremely one-sided, without any explanation why we need to manage forests and woods. It is very bad for the public perception of the chainsaw!

I'd like to redress this a little by getting in touch with the owners. The wood is near Warter in East Yorkshire. If anyone knows the area could you email me so that we can find out more. There are more details on my blog.

Cheers

Nick

 

[jpt]

Its the guardian you dont expect anything they print to be ballanced do you.

Shame about the trees I hope the wood will be put to good use.

john

 

[MIGNAL]

Is it really that one-sided?
Here's a quote from Hockney:

'I thought first they had gone for housing, but now I believe that can't be right in such a remote spot. I think they were just harvested, as if they were any other crop - and though they had a perfect right to do it, it still seems very sad."

Sounds a perfectly reasonable statement to me.

 

[yetloh]

Don'y know the location but I gather it was the Forestry Commission wot dunnit.

Jim

 

[Kazsub]

Hi,

I was just listening to PM on Radio 4 on my way home, they had this article on there with an interview with someone from the forestry commission - he made a really good case for the felling work and for the regeneration / re planting of the copse - and expressed his sympathy for David Hockney - probably difficult for the FC to anticipate an artist working on a series of paintings in a small copse!

 

[xy mosian]

Hi all,
I don't know that wood/copse personally, but cycled through the beautiful areas around Warter, on a Tandem, quite a lot many years ago.
The power station at Drax was, at one time, involved in a program to burn coppiced Willow as a fuel. Apparently the Willow growing to the age of seven, or so, takes in more carbon than it gives off when burnt. Now if this program is being followed there must be a number of Willow plantations around which were planted specifically to fuel the power station. At seven years growing these will be a strong part of the landscape and missed when actually coppiced.
I do not know the latest situation with regards to the Willow as fuel work, doubtless if it was a good idea it has probably been shelved.

 

[xy mosian]

Sorry, wrog button pressed. To carry on.


It may well be that this particular coppice was not part of the whole fuel thing, but let's hope that whatever the reason, the wood did not get destroyed for no good purpose.

xy

 

[Steve Maskery]

According to PM tonight, the wood in question is privately owned , but 200 years old. The owners were liable for damage to the very-nearby-council estate. The beech trees were mature, getting dangerous and had to be felled and the area re-planted. It was all good, sensible woodland management (although there was no mention of what happened to the timber), but very unfortunate timing. If the Forestry Commission had known about DH's plans, or vice versa, than an accommodation could easily have been reached, but they didn't and it wasn't.

I normally rate Carolyn Quinn, but today I thought she was very poor in her analysis and interrogation of the FC bloke - "So it was a case of not seeing the wood for the trees?" - I'd have just laughed at the stupidity of the question.

S