Art in The Gardens

Melanie Yazzie: Peace Walking

May 3 – Aug. 17, 2025 

This stunning exhibition organized by Denver Botanic Gardens, features six large-scale sculptures by contemporary Diné (Navajo) artist Melanie Yazzie. A meditation on “Walking in Beauty”—a Diné prayer about finding communion with one’s environment—Peace Walking celebrates the healing powers of nature and the strength of friendship between humans, animals, and plants. 

About the Artist: Interdisciplinary artist Melanie Yazzie uses iconography of animals, plants, and people throughout her sculptures to tell a deeply personal story.Drawing on childhood memories, global travels, and her experiences as a contemporary Diné artist, Yazzie invites viewers to use nature to connect with the narratives of their own lives. The Colorado-based artist’s work conveys wonder and peace while encouraging viewers to engage with complex Indigenous experiences.

Painted ponies galloping. A butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. A winged horse taking flight. From the humble
beginnings of a single sheet of paper to 13 gravity-defying metal sculptures, ORIGAMI IN THE GARDEN takes you on a journey of hope and discovery.

The ORIGAMI IN THE GARDEN art exhibition is created by Santa Fe artists Jennifer and Kevin Box in collaboration with origami artists Tim Armijo, Te Jui Fu, Beth Johnson, Michael G. LaFosse and Robert J. Lang. 

Experiencing the exhibition is included with admission/membership. A dial-in-from-your-phone descriptive audio tour is also available to visitors.   

Spring 2023 – Spring 2024

Bird House Villages at The Gardens on Spring Creek

The Gardens on Spring Creek and Art in Public Places partnered to bring Bird House Villages to by local artists Dan Huling and Todd Kundla during the 2022–2023 growing season.

Celebrating both the beauty the ecological functions of birds, including seed dispersal, pollination and pest control, the installation features nine unique bird communities.

Using found objects collected from across the area, Bird House Village explores the concept of house and home through the view of birds. Utilizing materials like large tree stumps, driftwood, salvaged piano parts, scrap wood, and a large collection of odds and ends, the artists have created a variety of sculptural micro-habitats and clustered dwellings that create niche bird neighborhoods throughout the gardenscape.

Inspired by themes of community, creative re-use, and our changing climate, these pieces offer habitats for birds as a place of refuge and play. In homage to the construction style of our feathered friends, these found object assembled sculptures encourage dialogues about what exactly makes a house a home, varying construction styles, and the resourceful use of materials in our natural and built environments.

The Gardens on Spring Creek and Art in Public Places partnered to bring Mountain Wildwoodsto The Gardens during the 2021– 2022 growing season.

From Artist Tom Benedict:

Rocky Mountain Junipers are some of the oldest trees in the world. The oldest one known, the Jardine Juniper in Utah, is over 1,500 years old and counting. The trees I collect for sculptures are long dead. They lived their lives in harsh conditions like rocky hillsides or windy, exposed ridges. By the time I get to them, they are grey, weathered, and dry, but usually still standing. A potential issue with most wood kept outdoors is rot, and old growth Juniper wood is incredibly rot resistant. Being closely related to cedar, it contains natural rot and insect resistant resins within the wood. That's why juniper branches were harvested for fence posts a hundred years ago. Some of those fences are still standing. Dead juniper trees can actually last for thousands of years. The rings on a dead juniper can cross-referenced with nearby live trees to get a year attached to each growth ring. The varying thickness over time of the growth rings in juniper are being studied for climate change data. Scientists called dendrochronologists have used this technique to age juniper deadwood back almost 3,000 years.