Alas, Arts Council Southeast rejected my grant application to fund another, more permanent Cyclemas Tree for Oxford. However, there's still a chance the thing will one day be made, whether or not it's for Oxford is up for grabs.
In the meantime, I'm storing the 40 derelict bicycles in the front garden. They look a mess, but they're esteemed veterans and I see no need to toss them out just because they are enjoying a temporary retirement.
When it is made, it will be roughly the same size as the 2004 temporary tree, but with a narrower base and a rocket-style profile. Like 2004, the lamp at the top will be illuminated by child cycle-power.
Unlike Cyclemas 2004, the next Cyclemas Tree will be designed to be easily transported 'flat-packed' to the site, and erected with only two people and no winches. It might, however, be a nice thing to push it on its wheels through the streets of Oxford in a ceremony, but we can choose the path this time.
The tree will be designed to clear beneath the city's other Christmas lights.
If the design provesto be popular, there is some talk of the Cyclemas Tree being installed permanently in an Oxford park. My personal hope is to install a Cyclemas tree in the middle of every roundabout on Oxford's Ring Road, not just as roadside art, but to signal to drivers that the role of cycling as a form of transport within Oxford is quite different than it is in the world outside the Ring Road.
