Two thousand flowers are in bloom right now at the New England Botanic Garden's annual orchid show. But tucked among the living plants are dozens of sculptures of orchids made from single-use plastic bags.
The exhibition is called "Patterns in Bloom" and is the brainchild of New England artist Molly Gambardella. She says she researched as many of the 28,000 different varieties of orchid as she could to craft her sculptures.
"It's overwhelming, at least for me at first, when I was trying to pull patterns and shapes and find that common thread to really be inspired from," said Gambardella. "But really the part that was overwhelming, the diversity, ended up being mainly what I focused on. There's 61 sculptures throughout this installation, but every single one is unique."
