Sarah Bass
Undergraduate, Drawing
Bag Blossoms
Cardboard, paper bags, plastic bags, acrylic paint
In this piece, hand-made flowers and grass, formed from plastic and paper bags, grow out of a plastic-and-paper-bag-wrapped, mountainous base. The bags layered around the base appear like layers of soil, while taking on the shape of a landfill. With this piece, I explore people’s excessive consumption of bags, both paper and plastic. I acknowledge the lack of proper disposal of these bags, the amount of energy put into their production, especially into paper bags’, and the bags’ lengthy processes to biodegrade. Paper and plastic bags, besides having their own environmental impact, serve as a means of transporting and holding environmentally hazardous items, such as pesticide-riddled foods and toxic cleaning products. The bag-composed flowers highlight littering and the synthetic chemicals that nature absorbs as it grows amongst humans’ waste. Their prettiness recognizes people’s tendency to gloss over the human impact on the diversity of life on the planet. With this mesmerizing mound, I convey how the small and simple bag, along with all other paper and plastic products, has such a large impact on the earth. I emphasize the importance of reducing the number of bags consumed with peoples’ purchases and I stress the need to properly dispose of such bags
