250/150/50: Celebrating Colorado’s Natural Heritage

The Colorado Native Plant Society is celebrating their 50th Anniversary along with the 250/150 CO celebrations. Working with Colorado artist Lee Lee & with curatorial support from Creature Conserve, we are celebrating with a series of creative engagements to help people envision how we may support our natural heritage together. Shining light on the groundbreaking legislative work achieved by our partners at the People and Pollinators Action Network, we have invited Denver artist, Faith Williams Dyrsten to lead a workshop on the creative process of lawn replacement. We admire Denver Water's campaign encouraging residents to replace lawns to conserve water while supporting pollinator wildlife in the city. This program is designed to be a way we can come together as a community to share creative ways of restoring habitat connectivity through Denver's central neighborhoods.

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.

Native seeds will be available for participants to take home.