A message in a bottle

These beautiful living sculptures are the creation of Paula Hayes a New York artist / Landscape designer who creates terrariums within delicate glass vessels. They remind me of specimen jars for rare plants or test tubes where young seedlings might be nurtured into a blossoming life. I'm especially fond of the oversize pendulous terrariums in the image above, where layers of soil and other growing media can be clearly seen by the viewer like a section through the landscape. Not only are these terrariums a living artwork, but they are also an intriguing way of transporting landscapes (although small in size only) to where ever we might want them to be - indoors, inside a courtyard or in a spare nook somewhere. Beautiful and fragile miniature landscapes can be nurtured and appreciated even in a seemingly inhospitable location.

The image above is from Paula Hayes' exhibition 'Excepts from the Story of Planet Thear' at the Marlanne Boesky Gallery, New York.