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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
Artist Hopid at Museum of Northern Arizona
The Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff highlights a lesser-known chapter in Native American art history central to its region: Artist Hopid. An exhibition series on view through April 30, 2027, features work from the groundbreaking collective formed in 1973 by celebrated Hopi artists Michael Kabotie, Delbridge Honanie, Terrance Talaswaima, Neil David Sr. and Milland Lomakema. Artist Hopid...
Native Art from The Howard L. and Mary Ellen Meredith Collection Donated to the Oklahoma State Art Collection
The Oklahoma Arts Council announced last month what it described as “the most significant collection of artworks gifted to the Oklahoma State Art Collection in its history.” New and now on view free to the public at the Oklahoma State Capitol are 10 works created by some of the most influential and highly recognized Native artists connected to the state. Artworks come from The Howard L. and Mary Ellen Meredith Collection. The couple’s daughters, America Meredith and Samonia Byford, directed the gift. “My parents' house is near the Oklahoma State Capitol, so we've been familiar with the art collections and...
Randall Davey Home & Studio Added to National Network
What do you love most? For me, that’s art. How about second most? For me, native plants. Now think about what you love third most. In my case, nature and birds and hiking and northern New Mexico. All of things I love most magically come together in one place: Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary in Santa Fe. Davey (1887-1964) was a realist painter and leading figure of the Santa Fe Art Colony, a convening of artists from around the nation in the early 20th century. In 1920, Davey converted an 1847 Army sawmill into his studio and residence, living...
See the West in Florida at James Museum
Three monumental contemporary Western art masterpieces greet visitors to the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg, FL. Dan Namingha’s (b. 1950; Hopi-Tewa) nearly 15-foot-long triptych Passage III (1999) first receives guests arriving to the second-floor galleries. Awesome. Namingha’s painting represents a spiritual journey through Hopi symbolism. Find the Butterfly Maiden. Colors representing the four cardinal directions: yellow (north), red (south), white (east), blue (west). Passageways to other worlds. Spirals of human migration. The vibrant, abstract painting surely confounds many first-time visitors’ expectations of cowboys and cattle drives. Hanging next to Passage III leading down a hallway...
A Day in the Life of Colorado as Experienced Through Prints
What would your perfect Colorado day look like? Fresh powder at Breck followed by après at Broken Compass Brewing. Backcountry hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park with stargazing. Whitewater rafting. A Denver museum grand slam: Denver Art Museum, MCA Denver, Clyfford Still, and Anshutz Collection? Gameday in Boulder or Fort Collins. Red Rocks music festival. Find your perfect Colorado day at the Kirkland Institute of Fine & Decorative Art at the Denver Art Museum during “Round the Clock: 24 Hours of Colorado in Prints.” The exhibition consists of 24 prints, each depicting one hour of the day, illustrating a slice...
Harry Fonseca and Coyote
In 1987, Margaret L. Archuleta (Tewa/Hispanic) wrote her Master of Arts in American Indian Studies thesis at the University of California, Los Angeles, about Harry Fonseca (1946-2006; Portuguese, Hawaiian and Nisenan-Maidu descent). The document proves insightful about prevailing opinions regarding Native American art from two generations back. Opinions that seem shocking today. “American Indian culture has been treated as an exterior impulse rather than an interior force of the development of Contemporary American Indian art,” Archuleta wrote. “Previous studies analyzed Contemporary American Indian art as a motif rather than an intricately entwined cultural statement based on traditional beliefs that reflect and respond...
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 gods are composed with ideas of completeness, beauty, and sacredness, while the towers are utterly utilitarian. In an imagined future where clean energy has replaced polluting fossil fuels and the towers no longer transmit power, what new function could they serve? Can...
'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,...