Secret Garden Gallery Isn’t a Secret Now

A lot has happened in Denise Moore’s professional life since we first featured her passion project, ZAB Cultural Collective, in the December 2019 issue of The Morningsider. After a months-long shutdown due to the pandemic, she’s thriving again and expanding her efforts to “build community through art, culture, and co-working.”

Denise’s latest project is The Secret Garden Gallery, an outdoor art market and garden she’s created next to her contemporary art gallery and co-working space for artists on E. Warren. Every Saturday this summer from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., you can browse or buy the work of local artists and enjoy the growing collection of murals, most painted by Denise herself, and other permanent outdoor art. You can transform yourself into a butterfly between the wings painted on one wall, or buy a cool drink and rest on a couch made of grass.

You’ll also find plants, flowers, and vegetables for sale. “I consider flowers to be art,” says Denise. “There’s art created by humans, and art you find in nature. They’re both important.” She’s creating a free seed and plant library – similar to the free libraries of used books you see in the neighborhood.

If you’re lucky, you may even find a small treasure hidden somewhere in The Secret Garden Gallery. “We hide pieces of art in the garden,” she says, “and if you find it, you keep it. Last week no one found the little painted flower pots we’d hidden.”

As long as you’re at The Secret Garden, check out the gallery and studio next door, which has paintings, pottery, and jewelry for sale, created by some of the fourteen artists who rent working space at ZAB Collective. There’s also a space in the back which can be used for events related to the arts, community, or education.

Denise will also be happy to tell you all about the “niche artist communities” that she wants to bring to ZAB Collective, especially the “tiny art movement.” Fascinating examples of tiny art are ACEO’s - Art Cards Editions and Originals- which are paintings or drawings on cards the size of standard baseball cards. And like baseball cards, ACEOs are bought and sold or traded. Each card is unique and original and may sell for as little as 50 cents or as much as $60-70.

As if that weren’t strange and intriguing enough, there’s also a whole community of “sticker people,” Denise says, who create original stickers, often in the style of Japanese anime. Not sure what that is? Just ask Denise any Saturday this summer between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. at The Secret Garden Gallery, 16927 E. Warren, just west of Cadieux. For more information, check out her Facebook page or website here.

The colorful art scene of the Secret Garden Gallery at Zab Cultural Collective. Image courtesy of Jim West

Denise Moore becomes a butterfly with wings she painted in The Secret Garden. Image courtesy of Jim West