Rachel Dahl
If you’ve lived in Fallon long enough, you know how often we find ourselves gathered around art, food, or a good excuse to get out of the house. The Churchill Arts Council is giving us all three this month with The Honeycomb Project, a sprawling, collaborative exhibition that feels about as “Fallon” as it gets, individual people bringing their art and building something bigger together.
The show opens November 22 at the Oats Park Art Center, with a community reception on Saturday, November 29, from 4–6 p.m. And if you’ve ever wondered what nearly a thousand pieces of artwork arranged into a honeycomb looks like, this is your moment.
The whole thing started with curator Candace Garlock and four other artists, Ashley Gottlieb, Bobbie Ann Howell, Robin Stark, and Tia Flores, working on a group show here in Fallon several years ago. Their theme back then was Pollination: The Gift of Chance in the Desert, and the idea stuck.
As Gottlieb wrote, ‘Similar to the artistic process, pollination is largely a game of chance. Pollinators might not fully grasp the impact of their actions; for instance, a bee gathers pollen and inadvertently transfers it to another flower, or a squirrel drops seeds while foraging. While artists aim for control over their creative journey, the most thrilling aspect often emerges when they surrender that control, allowing instinct and spontaneity to guide them. The notion of chance, in both pollination and art, served as a vital reference point for us as we prepared for this exhibition.’
Garlock decided to run with that idea, quite literally, by asking each artist to make work on 8-inch wooden hexagons, those familiar honeycomb shapes. The plan was to tie their pieces together visually for marketing and for the entrance to Oats Park’s galleries.
But as we in Fallon know, good ideas have a way of growing legs around here.
What began as a call for five artists became a regional call for contributions from across the West, with Garlock aiming to collect at least 1,000 hexagon panels. The result is a geometric wall of color, texture, and stories. Ceramics, sculpture, pyrography, printmaking, and painting, all fitting together like a handmade community quilt, just with sharper corners.
Garlock says people tend to think a honeycomb is a simple form until they look closely. “Each cell works in harmony to create a cohesive whole… Similarly, individuals within a community unite, each bringing unique talents, skills, and roles,” she explains. In other words, no single artist could make a honeycomb alone. But together? Well, just look at it.
Visitors to the reception will be able to meet some of the contributing artists, see the complete installation up close, and take in the size of a project that grew far beyond its original seed idea.
And because Oats Park never misses a chance to wrap art into the life of the town, the reception lines up perfectly with Small Business Saturday. Beginning at noon, the ChArts store will be open with new gifts and locally made items; the Chamber’s Small Business Saturday raffle will take place between 3:30 and 4 p.m.; and the Art Bar will be open during the reception with seasonal cocktails.
If you’re looking for something to do on Thanksgiving weekend that doesn’t involve leftovers or refereeing whose turn it is with the remote, wandering through the Honeycomb Project might be just the thing. It’s a quiet but powerful reminder of what happens when people show up with their own little piece and let it become part of a whole.
The Honeycomb Project
• Exhibit: Nov. 22, 2025 – Jan. 5, 2026
• Reception: Saturday, Nov. 29 | 4–6 p.m.
• Location: Oats Park Art Center, Kirk Robertson Gallery, 151 E. Park St.
• More info: honeycomb2025.blogspot.com or churchillarts.org
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