This Artist Spends 6 Weeks Crafting a Single Mini Plant Out of Paper
Lebanese-Venezuelan artist Raya Sader Bujana creates whimsical paper houseplants that are ideal for those with small living spaces and/or little to no gardening skills.
The series, titled “Tiny Big Paper House Plants,” has been ongoing for three years now and features paper sculptures that have been cut, scored, weaved, and folded to resemble lifelike miniatures of figs, succulents, and even bonsai, among others. Each potted plant comes in small hand-woven baskets that are no larger than your (green) thumb.
According to the Barcelona-based creative, it takes her weeks to “cultivate” just one paper plant. “They take between 5 to 6 weeks to create from start to finish,” Bujana told Apartment Therapy. “I tend to go very deeply into detail for these pieces and have to figure out the weaving and sculpting, so they’re super time consuming.”
“I started experimenting with paper art during my architecture studies, so it started a long time ago, then I came back to it around 2009 mostly as a hobby and it started growing from there,” she said. When it comes to her miniature plant series, she was inspired by her love of plants, and “I really wanted to dive into my technique and my capacity for achieving as much detail as I could with paper.”
While she can’t pick a favorite piece (“I love them all”), they each have their own challenges. “I think all of them have been more or less equally difficult, some have more complex baskets or plant stands and others have more complex plants and leaves,” said Bujana.
But is it harder than keeping real plants alive? Yes, she said. “I’m quite good with real-life plants.”