The two best art events in Colusa County this October are about the same thing: the barns, dryers, silos and rice checks most of us pass on the way to work. One of them takes place inside one of those buildings. Salmon Bend Art Studios, at 3606 Brown Road in Colusa, is a former prune-drying barn, and its 2026 Harvest Show has two days left, Saturday, Oct. 17 and Sunday, Oct. 18, from noon to 4 p.m. Downtown, the Colusa County Arts Council has a show up through Dec. 10 that paints the county's rice dryers at the scale of skyscrapers.
Seen together, they say something about this place. Here, farm buildings are the subject of the art and also where it hangs.
A Gallery Built Where the Prunes Came In
Salmon Bend calls itself an artist-run gallery in the heart of the Sacramento River Valley. It is open to the public for just a few weekends a year, during its annual show. Its own tagline is "Annual shows, occasional hours," which is why many people who live a few miles away have never been inside.
Artist Gabe Babcock turned the prune-drying barn into a gallery in 2019. According to the studio's history, the gallery room is the old loading bay, where horse-drawn carts once unloaded boxes of prunes for processing. The steel tracks that moved pallets of prunes to the dryer are still in place in the sculpture studio and woodshop next door.
Across the yard is the Tea House, and it has its own farm story. The studio writes that Bill Halsey built it in the 1940s. Halsey invented the Halsey Prune Harvester, the first mechanical tree shaker, and he built the house for the family of Akiji Yoshimura, who served the U.S. military as a Japanese-American interpreter during World War II. In 2018, Bill's nephew Warren Halsey hired Babcock to renovate the orchard house. Babcock drew on the deep canyons of the Sierra and a supply of scavenged redwood, and the house became a Japanese tea house.
So one property holds both the machine that changed how prune orchards were harvested and the barn where that harvest was dried. Today the barn shows paintings and sculpture.
Who Shows Here, and Why It's October Now
The 2026 Harvest Show has new original work by three artists: Gabe Babcock, Roberta Monte James and LK James. The studio's listing names no theme, so you won't know what's on the walls until you walk in.
The annual show has not always been in October. Roberta Monte James writes on her events page that Babcock started the Winter Show in 2020, and the fourth annual Winter Show ran Nov. 3–12, 2023. The record for 2024 is mixed. LK James's exhibition history lists a Harvest Show that year, while Roberta Monte James's page lists a November 2024 Winter Show. By 2025, the studio archive shows a Harvest Show.
The studio hasn't announced any public hours after Oct. 18. As of today, this Sunday afternoon is the last confirmed chance to see the barn gallery open.
Saturday Is the Day to Go
This year's show ran its first weekend Oct. 9–11, with an opening reception on Friday, Oct. 9, and light refreshments served outside the barn. Two days remain, and Saturday has more going on.
At 4 p.m. Saturday, as the gallery's regular hours end, the Colusa County Arts Council holds a special edition of its Live Lit series in the barn. Local writers will read short pieces of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and other spoken work, and light refreshments will be served. The Colusa County Pioneer Review community calendar lists the reading as part of the gallery's Harvest Show.
| Day | Time | What's happening | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, Oct. 17 | Noon to 4 p.m. | Harvest Show open hours | Salmon Bend Art Studios, 3606 Brown Road, Colusa |
| Saturday, Oct. 17 | 4 to 6 p.m. | Live Lit with the Colusa County Arts Council | Same barn |
| Sunday, Oct. 18 | Noon to 4 p.m. | Final Harvest Show open hours | Same barn |
If you arrive around 2 p.m. Saturday, you'll have time to see the show, walk to the Tea House, and be there when the readings start.
Williams has an event that same evening. The Williams Community Center Association's wine and beer tasting opens its doors at 5:30 p.m. at the Sacramento Valley Museum, 1491 E St. Tickets are $50 and include a light meal, with the Kelly Twins Dueling Pianos starting at 7 p.m. The Pioneer Review calendar says tickets are sold at the Williams Fire Department office or by calling 530-870-2711.
Downtown, the Rice Dryers Get Their Portrait
After Sunday the barn closes, but the second half of this story stays up through Dec. 10 at the Colusa County Arts Council Gallery, 151 Fifth St.
The show is R I C E L A N D & beyond, paintings and collage by Northern California artist Ema Lahey. It is her first solo exhibition. According to the Arts Council's exhibition announcement, the paintings come from about 700 photographs Lahey took on five trips through the valley in the winter of 2025 and 2026. She photographed grain silos in every condition, rice dryers, fields, irrigation canals and big skies across Glenn and Colusa counties.
Her treatment of those subjects is what makes this show worth pairing with Salmon Bend. In the Arts Council's description, the huge rice dryers and silos become monuments that call to mind Manhattan skyscrapers and the Colorado Rockies. Aerial views of rice checks and fallow fields read like city blocks seen from above.
Arts Council Director Milly Lee described the show in that same announcement:
"It is easy to simply drive past the rice mills, silos, fields, and farmland on our everyday commutes and forget the natural beauty that our rural area actually holds."
Lahey grew up close by. The Arts Council says she was raised in Willows, explored irrigation canals as a kid, and team-roped with her father on the family's small cattle ranch. After a 40-year career that took her to New York City, Denver and Cleveland, she came back to rural Northern California in 2022 and opened Sönam Studio in Lake County.
The artists at Salmon Bend work inside a converted farm building, while Lahey's subjects are dryers and silos that are still running. Both shows treat the county's working agriculture as worth a closer look.
What Stays Open After the Barn Closes
The Arts Council Gallery's posted hours are Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., plus some Saturdays and by appointment. A few other dates are on its calendar this fall:
- Monday, Oct. 19, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. A screen-printing workshop for the CUSD Art Club, led by the Chico nonprofit Pedal Press at 151 Fifth St.
- Monday, Oct. 26, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. A second CUSD Art Club screen-printing session with Pedal Press.
- Mondays, 1 to 2 p.m. The Ukulele Club meets at the Arts Council, and players of all levels are welcome.
- Tuesday, Dec. 1. Giving Tuesday, the Arts Council's all-day donation campaign.
- Thursday, Dec. 10. The last day to see R I C E L A N D & beyond.
The Saturday Live Lit reading at Salmon Bend is a special edition of a series the Arts Council runs, so its calendar is where any future readings would be announced. To catch the barn gallery open, the studio's Harvest Show 2026 page has the confirmed hours, and right now those end at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 18.
Do you have an old dryer, a prune barn or another aging outbuilding on your property, and wonder what it adds to the value? It's worth finding out before you decide whether to tear it down, fix it up or market it as is. Amber West Torres has sold ranch and agricultural property across Colusa County and can tell you how buyers are pricing these buildings today. Request your free home valuation, and let's start with the barn.
