Vaughn Bell Reminds Us That Everything We Take From Nature Is Technically On Loan

Does this photo make you smile or roll your eyes and say, "Oh pul-eezzze"?

Well, there's plenty more...all you have to do is take a good long look at Seattle-based artist Vaughn Bell's vast portfolio for all sorts of human-head-meets-self-contained terrariums.

There is a method to her madness -- she's offering a hip and slightly left-of-center examination of the way that we are connected and interact with Mother Nature.

When you look at the scale with which human heads tower over her mini landscapes, her observation is dead on since we have always dominated our natural environment rather than becoming one with it. 

All of the above pieces are personal biospheres with cut outs that enable gallery visitors to literally experience the green goodness first hand (as opposed to viewing it through a barrier), and while it may seem quirky and amusing, there's a lot more to it than meets the eye.

Mankind has worked overtime to carve out, edit and completely obliterate naturally occurring landscapes in favor of installing concrete jungles, landfills and industrialized centers.

Now, we are content getting our fix of Mother Nature in the tiny random greenbelts that we've allowed to remain -- which is why even Bell's Garment for Flora-Fauna Relationship (above) is so dead-on...

...she is offering us a way to remember what it's like to nurture greenery and simply just reconnect with the outside world by bringing it right in our face and on our person.

She reminds us that everything that we take from Mother Nature is really just a form of adoption, and in the case of her pocket biospheres, she offers them to responsible parents complete with somewhat semi-legal adoption papers expressing the importance of caring for the living entity with proper techniques including...ahem...adequate moisture.

Here is the artist herself, keeping a watchful eye over the greenery that stars in all of her works. I think that she offers really valuable eco-food for thought -- what is your perception?