CON: with
SPIRE: to Breathe

The idea of eco–conspiracies grows from the idea that we breathe together with plants. As the foundation of ecological webs, native and bioregional appropriate plants serve to restore habitats, especially through the tight urban spaces where most of us dwell. Opening space for contemplative practice, we invite visitors to slow down and breathe with surrounding plants in our spheres, practice creative acts of sci/art conservation, and share seeds and their stories with neighbors to pass regenerative acts forward.

Using Art to Bring Wildlife Conservation Closer to Home
Broadening perceptions of ‘home’ to include outdoors spheres around our lived-in structures, we encourage deepened relationships with non-human species who dwell with us in the urban corridors we call home, thinking of ways we may increase connectivity across Denver’s communities.

EXHIBITION
DATES: March 1 – April 30, 2026
An immersive installation sharing stories of creative restoration work by practitioners within the Creature Conserve community interspersed with local artists’ multi-disciplinary approaches of re-inhabiting conservation.

Spring 2026 engagements

Sunday, March 29: 10a – 12p
Native Seed Packaging Work Party

Hang out and help us package up seed for the upcoming Colorado Native Plant Society‘s Annual Conference and local seed shares. Participants can take seed with them after the event. The Galleries are a lovely, light-filled space perfect for this kind of slow, relaxing work. Come pack seeds and chill. We will provide seed, envelopes, packing instructions, and a place to make new friends. Feeling creative? Lee Lee will offer hints on how to approach washes & resists to create art for seed packaging.
GALLERIES on DOWNING: 420 North Downing, Denver CO 80218

Saturday, April 18: 1-4p
Volunteer Day & Plant Exchange in the Stiles African American Heritage Gardens

Join us for spring spruce-up of the Stiles Gardens! We will be giving away pollinator powerhouses that were installed with the People & Pollinators Action Network as we thin the garden to open space for more diverse plantings. Seeds will be sown & are available to take home. Bring your own garden thinnings to share with the community. Kala Greene, director of the Stiles Center will be on hand from 2-4p to give tours of the Heritage Center founded by her mother, Grace in the early 1990s.
Stiles African American Heritage Center 2607 Glenarm Place, Denver, CO 80205

Sunday, April 19: 9-11a
Tuning into Birds with Viviane Le Courtois

Viviane will lead us through her creative process for new work in association with Denver Parks & Recreation she has been creating for a Public Art Project and Residency; a site specific work being developed for the Wellington Webb Building, City of Denver. Inspired by birds and their song patterns, we will walk through City Park and learn how to tune into the presence of birds and think of ways to translate their movements and songs.

Thursday, April 30: 6:30 – 8:30p
Goodbye Grass! Workshop with Faith Williams Dyrsten

Faith’s mixed-media illustrations are observations on the phases of new growth, ongoing
decay, and insect life. After removing the turf grass from her front yard using the “cardboard composting” method, Faith took pieces of cardboard back into these changed garden spaces and created live drawings of the plants. This series questions our needs for the traditional suburban grass lawns and considers what can happen when we create more pollinator-friendly spaces. Workshop will be paired with a demonstration of the cardboard method in the gardens at the GALLERIES and a presentation on grass replacement methods.
GALLERIES on DOWNING: 420 North Downing, Denver CO 80218

Sunday, May 3: 3-5p
Land & Seasons with Control Group Productions

Patrick Mueller of Control Group Productions will lead us through the creative process behind the series of expeditionary performance centered on an exploration of Land and Seasons: After The Flood (June 2021); Canopy (October 2022); Bitter Moon (December 2023); and the most recent, Red Willow (March 2026). Offering “transformative embodied experiences, developed through community-engaged artistic exploration of critical social topics and aimed at connecting people, place, and practice“, CGP is a groundbreaking troupe of performers who actively deepens our relationship with Denver’s urban ecologies and communities therein, by guiding us through immersive theater that shines light on diverse narratives that have contributed to who we are today.

Sunday, May 17: 10a-noon
Nature’s Notebook mural walk with Catie Michel

Join the Colorado Native Plant Society and Denver artist, Catie Michel as we establish a phenology trail & hear about the creative process behind Catie’s Nature’s Notebook mural. Commissioned by the Sand Creek Regional Greenway Partnership for their 25th Anniversary, this ~3,915 sq ft mural features five large, trompe l’oeil-style field notebooks detailing some of the beings found along the Sand Creek Regional Greenway: Plants and Pollinators, Aquatic Habitats, Reptiles and Amphibians, Mammals, and Birds. Various tools of observation accompany the organisms: hand loupe, pencil, magnifying glass, species checklist, binoculars. Notes, diagrams, and labels in both Spanish and English fill the pages. Here is a short reflection about the project.

Thursday, May 21: 7pm
Artist – peer critique with Faith Williams Dyrsten

A free group for all artists and creators seeking to improve their work through thoughtful, peer feedback. Meeting every Third Thursday in Denver since 2013.
GALLERIES on DOWNING: 420 North Downing, Denver CO 80218

Saturday, May 23: 2-4p
America, A Love Story & Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden Reading & book signing with Camille Dungy

Join us for this event co-hosted with the HABITAT Library! Camille Dungy will read and sign her books America, A Love Story and Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden.

Camille T. Dungy is the author of America, A Love Story (Wesleyan UP: 2026). She has also written the memoir Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers, and four other collections of poetry, including Trophic Cascade, winner of the Colorado Book Award. Dungy edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, the first anthology to bring African American environmental poetry to national attention.

Camille is  University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University, Dungy’s honors include the 2021 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in both prose and poetry.

Stiles African American Heritage Center 2607 Glenarm Place, Denver, CO 80205
RSVP to  jeff@habitatlibrary.co.site

Saturday, June 6: 10a – 1p
Slow Food Denver’s Great Bake-sale

Highlighting Colorado’s robust ‘grain chain’ we will be gathering in one of Denver’s most prominent private gardens to celebrate our local producers. This event will highlight Slow Food Denver’s mission to bring good, clean & fair food to Front Range communities, with a focus on seed to plate education for Denver’s youth. Lee Lee will lead creative activities integrating Colorado grains for participants to take home.

Saturday, June 13: 2-4p
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis
Book club with HABITAT Library

“Honey was another one of nature’s contributions to spring. On warm spring mornings my father would bring in a big pan of honey that he had located in the hollow of an oak tree. He would break into the comb and gather the honey, filling his pan with the delicious, clear, dark amber nectar. We chewed on the wax for days and enjoyed the honey on hot biscuits throughout spring.” — Edna Lewis

Edna Lewis’ The Taste of Country Cooking follows the seasons of her childhood home, the Virginia settlement of Freetown, founded by her grandfather and other freed slaves. This classic cookbook is full of recipes and stories of a bygone age. M.F.K Fisher sums up the surprising gifts Edna Lewis’ writings offers us: “This book is fresh and pure, the way clean air can be, and water from a deep spring.“

 A new 50th Anniversary Edition of The Taste Of Country Cooking is due this May, but earlier editions are still easy to find. And by the way, we are planning a second part to this special Book Club. This fall the Stiles Center and Habitat Library will be hosting a Harvest Pot-luck inspired by Edna Lewis’ recipes and seasonal stories!

“Sitting down to a meal with the first chicken of the season was always a pleasure. It was also the day we removed our shoes for the season — the weather being sufficiently warm — with a feeling of freedom and an awareness of the fullness of spring, and a delicious meal inside us.” — Edna Lewis

Stiles African American Heritage Center 2607 Glenarm Place, Denver, CO 80205
RSVP to  jeff@habitatlibrary.co.site

Friday, June 19th: 11a – 3p
Juneteenth at the Stiles African American Heritage Center

Every year on “Freedom Day” the SAAHC hosts a partner event with the larger community celebration. We serve the traditional red drinks and watermelon to all who pass by! Join us in the gardens surrounding the Stiles Center where we will disburse the first round of plant ID signs that carry stories of African American plant relationships. This project is supported by the Regional Arts Organization’s Walking Together: Investing in Folklife in Communities of Color. Learn more about the Stiles Gardens
Stiles African American Heritage Center 2607 Glenarm Place, Denver, CO 80205

RSVP to any of these engagements by e’mailing leelee@creatureconserve.com

Archive

Winter Seed Sowing Demonstration
Saturday, February 7, 10:00am – 12:00pm

Location: GALLERIES on DOWNING,
420 N. Downing St., Denver, CO 80218

Come learn about winter seed sowing techniques for native plants! Your hosts Lee Lee Leonard & Mele Avery will guide you through the steps of understanding what seeds require winter stratification and will demo a few techniques to achieve the best results. They will show you how to set up an outdoor nursery and guests will take home seeds immersed in moist sand for stratification. Milk jug sowing and water soaking milkweed seeds will also be demonstrated.

 

Nature Journaling Workshop
Saturday, February 21, 10:00am – 12:00pm

Location: GALLERIES on DOWNING,
420 N. Downing St., Denver, CO 80218

Nature Journaling bridges art and science to deepen our understanding and connection with surrounding habitats. Join us for an introduction on how to develop a creative practice of observation to carry with you. 

Benefits of Nature Journaling: 

• Boosts Mental Well-being: Acts as a stress reliever, helps process emotions like anxiety or grief, and promotes mindfulness and restorative time outdoors
• Sharpens Observation Skills: Forces you to slow down and notice details you’d otherwise miss, improving attention and critical thinking.
• Improves Memory & Learning: The act of drawing and writing significantly aids in remembering experiences and understanding concepts. 
• Fosters Creativity & Self-Expression: A non-judgmental space for art, poetry, and storytelling, helping to articulate thoughts and emotions.
• Develops Scientific Skills: Encourages questioning, pattern recognition, and recording local ecological data, turning you into a citizen scientist.
• Creates a Sense of Place: Builds a deep, personal connection to specific locations, fostering stewardship and belonging.