Essential West Magazine
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Learn about the latest Medicine Man Gallery happenings; all about our artist, see our educational videos about native American art and fine art, watch podcasts with your favorite artists and check out art and history-related links we think you'll enjoy.
Exploring Art, Literature, History, Museums, Lifestyle, and Cultures of the West
It amazes me that four letters - W-E-S-T - have the ability to evoke an instantaneous emotional image. Simply the act of reading these four letters has caused you to form a narrative of your west.
Can the West be distilled to its essence - a simple direction or region? I believe not; it is a deeper dive of consciousness. How America sees itself and the world defines us. Diverse cultures, strong individualism, open spaces, and raw natural beauty marinated in a roughshod history have formed this region’s unique milieu.
Our online magazine’s primary focus is to feature relevant topics in art, literature, history, museums, lifestyle, and culture; lofty goals for any publication. No single magazine can be the beckon of all things western; it is a diverse, evolving paradigm that cannot be pigeonholed. As the publisher, I hope to be the buffalo that grazes the wide expanse of western sensibility and relay to you a glimpse of how I perceive our Essential West.
- Mark Sublette
Featured Article
From Navajo Nation to the Whitney Biennial: Nani Chacon's Transmission Tower Sculptures
Nani Chacon (b. 1980; Diné) has been captivated by the incongruous similarities between traditional depictions of Diné deities in sand paintings and the electrical towers used by coal refineries across the Navajo Nation since she was a little girl. Chacon was born in Gallup and raised on the Navajo reservation and in New Mexico. The images of Diné...
'Mystics' or Moderns? You Decide in Seattle
In 1953, a reporter from Life magazine traveled from New York to Seattle to review the Pacific Northwest art scene. The magazine had never done this before. The article focused on four local artists: Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, Guy Anderson, and Morris Graves. The unaligned group were referred to by the reporter as “mystics,” their spiritual engagement with nature and perceived alignment with Asian and Northwest Coast Native cultures amplified in the story. Today, the characterization would be insulting, dismissive, and more than a little racist, as if Asian and Indigenous cultures and artwork inspired by them are “mystical,” “strange,”...
'At Home in the Sunlight:' Painting California in the Early 20th Century
“The last living outdoor paradise.” California’s civic leaders pitched this fantasy to the nation and the world in the early 20th century hoping to lure new residents, industries, and tourists. It was very successful. A near total fabrication, but successful. UC Irvine’s Langson Orange County Museum of Art’s exhibition “At Home in Sunlight: A State in Motion, 1897–1940,” begins with artworks reinforcing this mythic California. 'At Home in Sunlight, A State in Motion, 1897-1940,' (installation view), 2026, UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, photo by Eric Stoner. “The first section is about climate and identity; I wanted to...
Revisiting Colorado's Gold King Mine Spill a Decade Later
On August 5, 2015, the rupture of the abandoned Gold King Mine near Silverton, CO in the southwestern part of the state released more than three million gallons of toxic wastewater into the Animas River turning its waters a shocking yellow. At the time of the disaster, Diné photographer Teresa Montoya had recently moved to Window Rock, AZ on the Navajo Nation where her family is based. Montoya was born and raised in Grand Junction, CO, but spent weekends and summers growing up on the Reservation. Window Rock and the Navajo Nation are downstream of Silverton. In the immediate aftermath,...
Dale Chihuly's Public and Private Spaces
Dale Chihuly’s Seattle “Boathouse” glass blowing hot shop and former home isn’t open to the public. Shame. The building’s industrial, utilitarian exterior belies the wonderland inside. In addition to housing Chihuly’s team’s workspace, it displays his numerous collections. Collections of his artwork. Collections of artwork from artists he admires. Collections of Edward Curtis photogravures – one of the largest. Of Northwest Coast Indigenous baskets – dozens. Of early 20th century trade blankets – hundreds. Art books, old radios, old cameras, record albums. Spectacularly arranged. The Northwest Room, The Boathouse, Seattle, 2026. Artwork by Dale Chihuly © Chihuly Studio. All rights...
Visiting the National Museum of the American Indian in New York
George Gustav Heye (1874-1957) made a killing on Wall Street before leaving finance as a young man to pursue an abiding passion for Indigenous art from the Americas – North, Central, and South. He began collecting in Arizona in 1897. His money allowed him to travel everywhere. To buy everything. His appetite for collecting was voracious. Not satisfied buying individual items, his collecting grew to include the acquisition of entire museum collections and the entire collections of other collectors. He’d buy hundreds and thousands of objects in one fell swoop. Indigenous artworks from the Southwest on view at National Museum...
Mimi Plumb: 50 Years Photographing the West
“Walnut Creek is a sunny, upscale and comfortable city at the base of Mt. Diablo, offering culture, shopping, sports and cuisine.” So says the city’s visitor and tourism website. The city of just over 70,000 residents 25 miles east of San Francisco considers itself “Calipolitan,” a made-up marketing slogan. It boasts of “120+ elevated dining experiences,” whatever that means. “Award-winning shopping.” Whatever that means. The average home price according to Zillow is $1,000,000, give or take, and that’s down almost 2% in the last year. This is not the Walnut Creek photographer Mimi Plumb (b. 1953) grew up in. “It...
60 Years of Gemini G.E.L. Prints in Los Angeles
The biggest names in late 20th and early 21st century art have come through the doors at Gemini G.E.L.’s Los Angeles printmaking workshop. Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper John’s, Frank Gehry, Ed Ruscha, David Hockney to scratch the surface. John Baldessari, Philip Guston, Julie Mehretu, Bruce Nauman, Isamu Noguchi, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Richard Serra. Those type folks. Since its founding in 1966, Gemini G.E.L. has been a place where artists are given the freedom to test and explore new ideas, materials, and scale, expanding the possibilities of printmaking with each generation. “They never limit the artist's imagination...
Arshile Gorky's Western Road Trip
“Three artists piled into a Ford station wagon...” I receive dozens of press releases daily for art exhibitions, museum openings, gallery shows, and cultural events around the world. This tease immediately captured my interest. Who were the artists? Where were they going? When was this? The answers proved even more delicious than the headline. In the summer of 1941, Arshile Gorky (1904-1948), his soon-to-be wife Agnes ‘Mougouch’ Magruder (1921-2013), and Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) packed into Noguchi’s brand-new Ford station wagon and set out for Los Angeles from New York City. Their two-week road trip marked Gorky’s first visit to the American...
Loveland, CO: Sculpture City, USA
With all due respect to the great Western wildlife painters from Carl Rungius to John Potter, animals in sculpture hit different than their two-dimensional counterparts. I don’t feel the same about figurative painting vs. sculpture, but seeing animals embodied in three dimensions in stone or bronze or glass gives a sense of their stature flat depictions simply can’t. For quality and quantity of wildlife sculpture, two destinations stand out: the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY and the Benson Sculpture Garden in Loveland, CO. The National Museum of Wildlife Art is a straightforward art museum with a focus,...