Featured Lexus Lifestyle Living artist, Paula Hayes – sculptor, painter and landscape artist – is inspired by the natural world. She constructs living sculptures and ecological environments that she compares to Ikebana, a Japanese flower arrangement, the difference being her Ikebana is alive.
Paula Hayes terrariums have taken the art world by storm. Hand-blown glass orbs accessed by a tiny portal teem with green, self-sustaining environments. Her small biomorphically shaped worlds remind you of a scale model biosphere. Remember Biosphere 2, the huge artificial closed ecological system constructed in Oracle, Arizona in 1990 and manned by “bionauts” dependent on their artificial world for everything? That’s the concept (in miniature) of the Hayes terrariums, but she invests them with the inspiration of the artist’s muse.
Paula Hayes is developing a reputation as an “eco artist,” but not surprisingly, she rejects the label. She likes to remind people that art does not have to be an inanimate object. Her terrariums are indeed works of art. They are beautiful to see and entice you to take a closer look. As you peer into a Paula Hayes-created world, consider the obligations placed on the collector of her art. As a living environment, your Paula Hayes terrarium requires interaction, care and possibly intervention. You are its caregiver. Its long-term viability is in part dependent upon your actions. This is truly interactive art.
Paula Hayes early years on a farm contributed to her love of the earth and growing things. In recent years, she’s worked in homes to create landscapes, pocket gardens and terrariums. Her work combining plants with sculpture has been exhibited widely. She earned a BS from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York and an MFA from Parsons School of Design in New York City. Her website is www.paulahayes.com.
Even though the Greeks grew and displayed plants in closed, transparent containers as early as 500 B.C., it was in 1827 that Dr. Nathaniel Ward, a London physician with a passion for botany, discovered the scientific principle behind the plant terrarium. In fact, his initial discovery, which led to the modern terrarium, was an accident.
While studying a moth emerging from a cocoon buried in moist earth inside a specimen jar, Ward noticed tiny ferns and grass growing in the soil in the jar. To his surprise, these plants continued to grow inside the covered container for four years without any water. Ward began to study this phenomenon and document the natural processes at work. While Ward’s findings were published in professional botanical publications, enterprising florists applied his discoveries and created a product that became known as a Wardian Case, the precursor of today’s decorative terrarium.
Paula Hayes creates her terrariums inside impeccably clear blown glass teardrops, inserting soil and plants through each teardrop’s tiny aperture. She must take great care in establishing the mini garden, and it takes about a year of nurturing before the plants are established and the work is ready for sale. In case you are curious, Teardrop Terrariums by Paula Hayes are priced between $8,000 and $22,000.
Art aficionados and décor divas agree: the aesthetic beauty and rewards of ownership make the work of Paula Hayes eminently collectable. What if the cost of a Teardrop Terrarium gives you pause? We say create your own world! Laying your hands on a hand-blown teardrop of fine crystal may pose a challenge, but there are other creative containers for terrariums, and the result is arguably equally legitimate art.
Paula uses fishtanks, bottles and other vessels that let light in and create a closed environment that traps moisture. The moisture evaporates from the soil and plant leaves and condenses on the terrarium's roof and walls. The condensed water then drops down and remoistens the soil, replicating the natural rain cycle that keeps the world going.
Paula Hayes pursues her art in the spirit of the Lexus Hybrid Living lifestyle, a philosophy that calls on eco-sensitive individuals to lead ecologically sound, environmentally sustainable lives. Lexus promotes this philosophy and pursues it with its LX, GS and RX models, luxury hybrid vehicles that produce 76 percent fewer smog-forming substances in their exhaust pipe emissions. You could think of your Lexus as a rolling terrarium with you as the living environment.
