New Art Space Galleries on Downing Cultivates Community

Lee Lee just wants to share seeds. “I love the concept of a living seed library, where signage guides people when to harvest, how to harvest, how to leave enough behind and take it and cultivate it in their own homes,” she says.

The artist, who thinks of herself as an instigator, wants to share art, books, activism and conversations, too. That’s why she opened Galleries on Downing, in an old Victorian at 420 Downing Street that housed her family’s real estate business when she was growing up. Lee Lee’s mother, who owned the business, added the house’s second story and side room. Her father transformed a parking lot into the back garden.

Lee-Lee and her seventeen-year-old son recently moved in. “It’s zoned to be a multi-use space,” Lee Lee says. “We are living here and running a gallery, and I have my studio in the back. I wanted to change the paradigm a little bit. I started what I’m calling a micro-foundation. It’s a little family foundation, so that we can work it in a way that the art that’s sold here benefits partner organizations.”

The gallery’s first installation, Imprints of Place & Plants, an eco-arts exhibition by Claire Coté, the Colorado Native Plant Society’s 2025 featured artist, opened in late September with an artist talk, a wildflower identification workshop and an eco-art program. “That weekend, when she sold work — and she sold quite a bit — that 30 percent commission went to support the Native Plant Society,” Lee Lee explains. “We’re making it a dynamic structure where we are taking a commission, but we’re passing on that support to whoever is activating this space.”

The space is also currently being activated by a large selection of books on people, plants and local nature from Habitat Library, a nonprofit organization started earlier this year and coordinated by Jeff Lee (no relation to Lee Lee). The nonprofit might be new, but Jeff Lee isn’t — he was also the founder of the Rocky Mountain Land Library, which he worked with for 25 years before branching off and starting Habitat.

Although the Habitat Library doesn’t yet have a permanent space and won’t be able to lend its books until it does, it has been hosting many book clubs and events — including the sold-out Robert Macfarlane talk on his book, Is a River Alive?, at the Denver Botanic Gardens in June and a series of book clubs hosted at Denver city parks to get people engaged with nature in the places where they live.

“We were so thrilled when Lee Lee approached us and gave us this temporary space,” Jeff Lee says of Habitat’s pop-up library in Galleries on Downing. “It’s a wonderful space to put out a sampling of those books.”

Habitat Library will host an open house at Galleries on Downing on Sunday, October 5, with hundreds of books to browse, and information about fall and winter book clubs and programs in the works. There will be a special focus on Palestinian land relations and food traditions, with a selection of Palestinian cookbooks and poetry, as well as some Palestinian food. Commission proceeds from the event will go to World Central Kitchen’s Gaza relief programs.

Lee Lee thinks of events like these as “celebratory activism around a shared table.” Genocide is dehumanizing, she says, and events like Habitat’s open house help people remember the victims’ humanity.

“I think that food traditions, because every tradition has food as the essential part of culture and identity, are a commonality where we can have this entry point into understanding Palestinians simply as humans,” Lee Lee adds. “And that is the first step in overcoming these atrocities.”

“That’s always been a balance that we’ve tried to hit right,” Jeff Lee notes. “You can’t just present the dire news.”

People are inspired by stories that activate them, and getting people connected with the natural world is how Habitat and Galleries on Downing aim to inspire.

“You hope that people can feel like they’re not alone anymore, in a way,” Jeff Lee says. “There’s not only other people like them who care about the places where they live, but there are resources. And for us, the resources are the books and the programs. We hope that the lightbulb goes off over people’s heads that it’s a wonderful world. Yeah, you’re going to be depressed by a lot of things you learn about, but oh my god, the other 75 percent can make your life, that love of nature.”

Imprints of Places & Plants will be on display during Habitat’s open house and through mid-November; Lee Lee says that Coté’s art “is about slowing down and developing this contemplative practice with the natural world to invite people to experience it in similar ways.”

Coté lives off-grid in New Mexico and founded Land, Experience and Art of Place (LEAP), an initiative meant to help deepen people’s relationship with nature. Colorado Native Plant Society executive director Maggie Gaddis met Coté at a week-long workshop in Taos earlier this year, and decided to make Coté the Colorado Native Plant Society’s 2025 featured artist.

“We always have seeds available because Maggie makes sure that they are available to complement the work that’s on the walls,” Lee Lee says. “It’s a free passing of plants so that people can really engage with the earth and try their hand at growing plants.”

Currently, Galleries on Downing is open by appointment only; Lee Lee says she plans to offer regular hours later this year.

In the meantime, she hopes that offering a space where people can look at art and become immersed in books will help them deepen their relationship with the natural world and with local habitats. “Our survival depends on it,” Lee Lee says. “I hope it provides an outlet for what can just be depressing about the natural world or the climate. This is a solid way to take action and form inspiring relationships with each other and the plants.”

Galleries on Downing is at 420 Downing Street; learn more about upcoming events at virtualvoices.org or @seed.disperse on Instagram. Make an appointment to see the gallery by emailing Lee Lee at lee-lee@virtualvoices.org or calling 303-570-3152. Habitat Library’s open house is set for 2-4 p.m. Sunday, October 5; keep up with Habitat Library at habitatlibrary.co.site or @habitatlibrarycolorado on Instagram. Email Jeff Lee at jeff@habitatlibrary.co.site to RSVP for the open house or make an appointment to see the pop-up library.