Posted on 06/18/2007 7:52:22 AM PDT by SmithL
OAKLAND -- In the end, 40 people braved the early morning mist Saturday, ignoring startled joggers, to strip buck naked and hug or dance around a condemned tree at Lake Merritt for a San Francisco photographer.
It was the kind of frigid day that only the Chamber of Commerce could love, but the cause is a good one, the photographer, Jack Gescheidt, said. The tree, a weathered, scarred, towering old eucalyptus, is one of 224 trees facing the city of Oakland's axe, an early step in a $88.3 million bond project to give the lake a 21st century facelift.
Facelifts are fine, Gescheidt said. "We're all for development. But that doesn't mean killing trees. It's short-sighted planning. I haven't spoken to the city, but it seems that with some care, these trees could be saved. Honestly, that's what landscapers do, cut down trees to save money."
Negotiations to settle a lawsuit filed by citizens to save Lake Merritt's threatened trees are underway and a settlement should be reached at some point this summer, a member of Friends of the Lake said.
The city argues that the trees marked for destruction are old, diseased or in places that it's essential to remove them to make way for improvements like creating a sloping, park area along 12th Street at the west end of the lake, an area that is a tangle of culverts and concrete.
The photo shoot, which will go up on Gescheidt's Web site: http://www.treespiritproject.com soon, drew people from a wide area. Among them were Annie Shao and her boyfriend, Ben Ward, who live not far from the lake in Oakland. "Even with our clothes on it was crazy cold," Shao said.
"We live near the MacArthur BART station and we come to Lake Merritt for picnics and just to hang out by the lake," she said. "We would not want to see all those trees cut down. We're not at a point that we can be cutting down trees,'' she said.
Shao said she had never posed nude before, but felt the cause was a strong one and worth doing. She chose to dance around the tree, while Ward climbed the tree, also in the nude. "He's the one that's highest up," she said. "He looks like a koala bear."
No one complained about the photo shoot, which happened about 8 a.m. after a 'dress' rehearsal. In fact, Gescheidt said, one jogger who was running by, joined the photo shoot; others just smiled. "It was quite a sight, 40 naked humans in a circle around this living giant. It's probably 80 years old; it was here when our grandparents walked around the lake," he said.
Gescheidt has made an art career photographing trees and naked humans to make a strong statement about the importance of trees in the environment. In March, he photographed about 75 people nude in a grove of threatened live oaks in front of Memorial Stadium at the University of California, Berkeley. A half dozen people have been sitting in the trees as a protest since December and three lawsuits challenging the university plan have been filed.
TreeSpiritProject photos can seen at http://www.treespiritproject.com. The photographer donates 10 percent of sales proceeds to nonprofit environmental groups. He is also planning a fund-raiser soon to finance at documentary about his project. For information, e-mail him at jack@treespiritproject.com.
Pictures? Come to think of it, nevermind.
If Oakland would invest in a good chainsaw, just the sound of it starting up would scare off most of the necked tree huggers off before they even started cutting it down. Most women and womenly-men are afraid of loud power tools.
Whose land is it on?
That persons decides if it lives or dies — not these perverted freaks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.